Category: Living

The Unemployment Diaries

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Subway rider in winter

On the E train downtown, I took a seat near the door and turned on my Kindle. A small, dark man in baggy clothes who’d been behind me on the platform stepped on and stopped. I wondered if he was looking for a seat and scooted down closer near the door to make room on my right, but he stayed standing and looked around. He looked relatively clean and wore a dark jacket over a grey hoodie. He had on a North Face backpack. A bottle of Axe body wash was tucked into one of the side pockets. Continue reading “The Unemployment Diaries” →

Some Mature Thoughts For 2016

Betty4 Comments

Processed with VSCOcam with c1 preset

Yesterday afternoon Tom came home from work and brought in a month’s worth of mail. I used to look forward to the mail because all I ever got were glossy fashion magazines and the odd letter or two from friends. But a few months ago I learned to dread it. Continue reading “Some Mature Thoughts For 2016” →

“Way Past Robitussin”: On Not Having Health Insurance

Betty5 Comments

FuckJerry meme making fun of affordable healthcare

A million years ago I worked at Costco as a seasonal worker. I met a varied cast of characters:

A Writer Like Cheever

Betty2 Comments
Author John Cheever at home in Ossining, NY in 1979. Photo from nytimes.com.

I wanted to share how my thesis review went and then realized… in a way, I already did it five years ago. I mentioned here that the actual meeting went well, but only because when you’re sitting in front of the professors, it’s hard for them to say, as was implied in their written comments, “Well, it was just awful.” Continue reading “A Writer Like Cheever” →