Tag: Family

The Neighborly Thing

BettyLeave a comment

Edward Hopper, American Village, 1912

I wish I could say I was putting the finishing touches on a riveting short story when the doorbell rang, but the Google Doc page I’d opened this morning still had just five meandering paragraphs on it. Instead, I was on YouTube, watching SNL clips, the tenth or twentieth one that day. Laughing, but feeling bad about it.

I closed my computer and went to the door. It was C, the kid from diagonally across the street, dressed head-to-toe in kid-sized Army fatigues that were still a little too big. His mom had carefully rolled up the sleeves in one neat fold, and from beneath the slightly-too long pants, she’d matched his shoes: suede forest-green Vans.

“Is Artie home?”

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Low energy parents

BettyLeave a comment
  • tired parents relax at the end of the day surrounded by laundry
    This is my first (and last) time using WordPress’s AI image generator. Clearly I could have put in more description of the entire family but the androgynous narrator character whose legs are too short for the ground (but great hair and ankles) is my AI spirit person.

Last night, just before Tom and I settled onto my parents’ lumpy couch to watch “The Wire“*, my dad said, “Aren’t you going to put the laundry on?”

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