I’ve been told the body inherits tragedy; that even if you don’t know the story, you hold it in your body; that what has happened affects your genes. She knows about the boat her grandma traveled to America in. She knows there’s a question of whether the family should’ve been on it at all, but she also knows the scarier… View Post

The erratic ding of the bell every time a customer walks into the store. The hiss and screech of the espresso machine. “Short mocha,” the barista calls. “Thank you,” the customer says. The crinkle of the bag the blueberry muffin is in. “Split it?” one half of a couple asks and the other half agrees. Laughter, and the scootch of… View Post

At the Barnes and Noble at Washingtonian Center after Jesse came home from work. At the Starbucks on Connecticut just before Chevy Chase, Maryland becomes Washington DC. At a kitchen table turned desk. I set it up in the girls’ playroom – my journals and books shared a bookshelf with the girls’ toys. At Bus Boys and Poets on Langston… View Post

About a week before Christmas, I ran downstairs with my laptop open to a job posting at the University of Notre Dame that I knew in the depths of my soul was the perfect job for me. The position was basically a full time storytelling gig. I would write stories. FOR A LIVING. “JESSE LOOK AT THIS RIGHT NOW I… View Post

I know the world is no good and we’re all terrible, rotten people, but Comet Coffee is now open until 6. For almost two years I couldn’t go in at all, and then just until 4, and I won’t say all is as it used to be – all shouldn’t be as it used to be – I know this… View Post