Forty Minutes of Pigeon Diplomacy
November eleventh. There was a pigeon on the fire escape this morning and I did not move for forty minutes. I noticed it when I got up to refill my coffee, just there, on the ledg…
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247 entries in Everyday.
The Floor Was Right There
October thirty-first. I got home at eight-fifteen, set my bag down next to the door, walked into the kitchen, and lay down on the floor. Not on the couch. The floor. There was no…
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The Candle Knew What It Was
October twentieth. The community center runs one-off workshops in the fall, I saw the flyer taped to the board by the yoga studio door, half-covered by a notice about parking, and…
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The Honey Vendor Has No Concept of Time (Neither Do We)
October ninth. The market runs Saturdays until the end of the month, and I have walked past the sign for it approximately six consecutive weeks without going. This was the week Si…
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The Salt Road and Other Detours
September twenty-eighth. It started with a library book. I had checked it out three weeks ago with good intentions, a general history of medieval trade, the kind of thing I pick u…
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The Sauce Situation
September seventeenth. I want to start by saying that the recipe had four steps. Four. I counted them specifically before I began, because I am a person who has learned, slowly, t…
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The Shelf That Required Two People (Technically)
September sixth. The context: our neighbor on the fourth floor asked if anyone could help her move a bookshelf up from the lobby, where the delivery guy had left it because, and I…
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Three Flights
August fifteenth. The bookshelf is up. I want that noted first, before anything else: the bookshelf is now standing against the wall on the third floor, exactly where Simone said…
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The Lanyard Goes in the Bag
July twenty-fourth. The shift ended at eight and I stood in the break room for about forty-five seconds doing the specific nothing that happens right after a long day, lanyard sti…
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Two Inches of Shade
June twenty-first. The summer solstice, which means the longest day of the year, which in this city means the longest stretch of concrete baking under a sun that has apparently de…
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The Algorithm Was Right
June tenth. Simone handed me her phone and said, just look at this, and the thing is she already knew the conversation was over. It was a Saturday afternoon. We'd gone for coffee…
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The Good Dryer
May thirtieth. There is one dryer in our neighborhood laundromat that costs an extra quarter and nobody can explain why. The drum sounds fine. The heat seems equivalent. There is…
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The Window Was Already Open
May nineteenth. At some point around seven I woke up and the apartment smelled different. Not bad-different, not something-is-wrong-different, just the specific smell of air that…
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What the Forward Fold Knows
April sixteenth. The thing about Tuesday yoga when you went bouldering Saturday is that your body has a very specific and detailed memory that your ego would prefer to keep quiet.…
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The One-Drink Agreement
March twenty-fifth. The original plan was one drink. I want the record to show that I genuinely believed us when we made that agreement, standing outside the community center afte…
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The Ending We Did Not Ask For
March third. We were both already tired before Simone texted. It was a Friday, end of a week that had not been particularly long but had felt it, and she said she had the night fr…
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Two Numbers on the Counter
February twentieth. At some point around eight-thirty I lined both phones up on the kitchen counter, the old one and the new one, and just looked at them for a minute before I tou…
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Lemonade, Midnight, No Regrets
February ninth. At some point in the evening, I genuinely cannot tell you what time, Simone and I stopped talking about anything practical and started talking about Beyoncé. I wan…
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The Long Way Around a Short Answer
January twenty-ninth. It started as a yes or no question. Simone had texted about the Wednesday community center schedule, something about whether the spring session overlapped wi…
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The Cake Was Worth It
January eighteenth. I want to be transparent about the state I was in last night: I had gotten approximately four hours of sleep, I was wearing jeans that required a decision, and…
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The Starter Situation
January seventh. Simone arrived with a mason jar. I want to be clear that we had a plan. The outdoor bouldering morning was on the calendar, the specific Saturday Simone named alo…
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The Week That Doesn't Count
December twenty-seventh. This is the week that doesn't count. The Christmas things are still out but they've lost their charge. The new year hasn't started. Work is skeleton-crew…
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The Four-Tier Problem
December sixteenth. Someone at work ordered a four-tier chocolate cake for a table of twelve people, and I want it on record that I did not question this. Not once. I sat down, I…
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Flashcards vs. a Highlighter
December fifth. Simone said she had 'a couple of things to review.' I want to be precise about that. Not a study session, not a crunch, a couple of things. I brought one highlight…
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The Pleating Problem
November twenty-fourth. Simone said 'low-key.' I want that on record. She used those exact words, low-key, just dumplings, nothing fussy, and I said yes because I had the day befo…
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The Thing I Keep Not Writing Down
November second. There is a sentence in my notebook that I have written and crossed out three times tonight, and I am starting to think the crossing-out is the actual subject. I a…
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The Booth Next to Ours
October eleventh. We weren't planning to stay long. The climbing session had run a little over, Simone had found a hold she kept losing and then finding again, which meant we both…
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First Day of the New Thing, Sort Of
September thirtieth. I want to state clearly that I had printed the schedule. I had printed it, put it on the kitchen table, poured the cold brew, and then, in a sequence of event…
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I Knew Nothing, It Turns Out
September nineteenth. I would like to state, for the record, that I walked into that room with a reasonable level of confidence. Not arrogance. Just the quiet, untested assumption…
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The Straw Thing
September eighth. I cannot fully explain what happened. That is partly because it involved a paper straw and a very specific Simone facial expression and the combination of the tw…
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The Salt Thing
August seventeenth. It started with a recipe. I was looking up something completely reasonable, how long to brine chicken, maybe, or whether I was salting pasta water correctly, a…
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The Productivity Defense
July twenty-sixth. Here is my case: we had the notebooks out. Simone had highlighters, plural, organized by some system I did not ask about. I had coffee and a legal pad with thre…
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The Call That Ran Long
July fifteenth. The holiday was two days ago but the quiet it left behind is still in the apartment. I called home on the fourth, not in a planned way, more in a I-have-forty-minu…
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The Neighbor Stayed Three Hours
July fourth. Someone's neighbor showed up with a six-pack and ended up taking most of the good photos, which I think is the correct way for a holiday party to go. I don't have a l…
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The Plant Had It Coming
June twenty-third. I want to be on record: I was minding my own business. I had the notebook out. I had the good corner table, the one with the window at an angle so you get the a…
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Seven Things, None of Them the Thing
June twelfth. I went to the store for one item. I will not tell you what it was because the specificity of it would make this too embarrassing, but it was a single, ordinary, comp…
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The Cracker Debrief
June first. Here is what happened: I hung up from a family call at eight forty-five, stood in my kitchen for approximately thirty seconds, and then texted Simone something that wa…
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The Pause Button as Coping Mechanism
May twenty-first. I want to be honest about what I did last night. I sat on the floor, not the couch, the floor, for reasons that felt structural at the time, and watched the Game…
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Eight Feet Felt Like Something
April eighteenth. The notice said Saturday morning, low wall, all levels welcome. I had been looking at it for three weeks, or rather, Simone had pointed at it three weeks ago at…
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The Hydrangea Situation
April seventh. We went for the succulents. I want to be clear about that. There was a sign outside the community center on Tuesday that said SPRING PLANT SALE, SATURDAY 9AM, and S…
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The Link She Sent
March twenty-seventh. It started, as these things tend to, with Simone sending me a single link at the end of a Tuesday session with the message 'just one thing' and a period. Tha…
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The Bread Machine Situation
March sixteenth. The yard sales started early this year, or maybe I just noticed them earlier because Simone texted me at eight forty-five on Saturday morning to say she had spott…
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The Green Ink Problem
February twenty-third. There were three things in the mailbox: a power bill, a furniture store circular I did not ask for, and a letter addressed to someone named M. Okafor. I do…
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The Book That Kept Us There
February twelfth. I picked up the book three weeks ago at the library, not because I had a strong feeling about it, just because it was on the display table near the door and I wa…
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The Cumin Situation
February first. The cabinet above the stove has been overloaded since approximately October, and I have known this the entire time. I have reached into it carefully, redistributed…
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The Honey Jar Argument
January twenty-first. The farmers market runs year-round, which sounds admirable until you are standing under a half-open canopy at eight-forty in the morning in January and the t…
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We Signed Up for Level Two
January tenth. The registration email said 'intermediate session' and I sent it to Simone anyway with no message, just the link, and she replied four minutes later with 'ok.' That…
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The Discover Weekly Explanation
December eighth. The thing about Simone getting a new phone is that she does not get a new phone quietly. There is a period, I would estimate it at somewhere between forty minutes…
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The Cranberry Sauce Situation
November twenty-seventh. For the record, cranberry sauce has four ingredients. Four. Cranberries, sugar, water, orange zest if you're feeling ambitious, which I was not. I had thr…
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The Shoe Was Already Dead When We Got There
November sixteenth. Simone's sneaker gave up the moment we sat down to stretch. Not during the climb, not on the walk over, during the stretch. The sole peeled back from the toe l…
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The Chalk Comes Off Eventually
October fourteenth. I put my card in at nine-seventeen on a Tuesday three weeks ago, and I have been quietly dreading this evening ever since in the specific way you dread somethi…
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The Mug Was Hot When I Made It
October third. The notes have been on the table since six. It is now, I just checked, almost nine-thirty, and I have made real, measurable progress on approximately one and a half…
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The Part Where I Registered and Then Immediately Panicked About Something Else
September twenty-second. The card details went in at nine-seventeen p.m. on a Tuesday. I know this because my laptop was also open to forty-three pages of notes I was supposed to…
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One Block Over
September eleventh. The shift ended at the exact moment where staying in the building felt physically impossible, so Simone said 'coffee' and I said 'yes' before she finished the…
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The Laundry Has Been Clean for Three Hours
August thirty-first. The plan was to do laundry, fold it while it was still warm, and be finished by noon. It is now almost four o'clock and the basket is sitting in the middle of…
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Six Feet, More or Less
August twentieth. The thing Simone said was: 'It's one session. It's not a commitment. It's just a thing we could do.' That was two weeks after she mentioned it in passing at the…
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The Week Two Things Hit at Once
July seventh. The phone bill and the pottery class fee landed in the same week. Not the same day, which would have been too obvious, but close enough that I looked at my notebook…
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The Number on the Paper
June twenty-sixth. The pottery class kiln results are still sitting in a box at the community center, waiting to be picked up, and I have been thinking about money. Not in a crisi…
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The Axe and the Aftermath
June fifteenth. The thing about agreeing to axe throwing is that you don't really reckon with what you've agreed to until you are standing in a converted warehouse holding a small…
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After the Clay
May twenty-fourth. The walk home from pottery takes about twelve minutes if I go the regular way, and I almost never go the regular way anymore. Wednesday evenings have developed…
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The Third Trip Up
May thirteenth. I want to be clear that I volunteered for this. Nobody drafted me. Simone mentioned, at the end of a shift sometime last week, that she was moving Saturday and her…
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Three Hours Standing, Zero Complaints
May second. The pottery instructor said something last week about how clay remembers pressure even after you think you've smoothed it out, and I've been turning that over all week…
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The Bookshelf Stayed Downstairs
April twenty-first. Easter weekend, and I spent part of it in a hallway arguing with a bookshelf. It started the way these things always do: someone sent a message that said 'hey,…
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Week Two, No Bowl, Full Attendance
April tenth. The thing nobody tells you about pottery is that the second class is somehow harder to walk into than the first, because by the second class you know what's coming. T…
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What the Wheel Knows
March thirtieth. The instructor made it look like breathing, hands steady, clay rising, and then she lifted her hands and the thing was a bowl. An actual bowl. Then she said, your…
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We Filled Out the Form
March nineteenth. The thing is, we had been standing at that counter for probably four minutes before either of us actually picked up the pen. The brochure was right there. The cl…
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The Wednesday Theory
February twenty-fifth. The thing about going out on a Wednesday is that you have to make a decision, and the decision is: do I actually want to do this, or do I want to be the kin…
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Two Stops East, Four Hundred Geese
January twelfth. Here is what happened: Simone asked me last week, in the casual way she asks things that turn out to matter, whether I ever just got on a bus without knowing exac…
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The Light on the First
January first. Not early, not late, just that middle part of the morning where it's technically daytime but nothing has been asked of you yet. The light outside was doing somethin…
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Four Gifts and No Tape
December twenty-first. The plan was to get this done in an hour. That was two hours ago, and I am currently sitting at my kitchen table with one piece of tape stuck to my thumb an…
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The Day After, and a Very Serious Chicken
November twenty-ninth. The list was my idea. I wrote it on the back of a receipt, which should have been the first sign, and by the third line it said 'chicken (or something)' and…
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The Longest Three Weeks of Absolutely Nothing
November eighteenth. I have been telling myself I wasn't thinking about it. This is a thing I am apparently capable of doing for an impressive stretch of time, about three weeks,…
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There Is No Sheriff Here
October twenty-seventh. What happened was: I walked past the bulletin board at the rec center on Thursday and there was a flyer for a Halloween costume contest and I read it, look…
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Forty Varieties
October sixteenth. The expired coupon booklet was for a Saturday market, which I never went to, but it turns out there's also a Thursday evening version three blocks further east…
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The Cardigan in Question
October fifth. There's a specific kind of Sunday morning that starts with opening the closet and immediately closing it again. Not because there's nothing to wear, there's somethi…
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Everything Moved and I Did Not Ask
September twenty-fourth. The phone updated itself overnight. I know this is how it works, I clicked something, agreed to something, probably at eleven-thirty when I was tired enou…
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The Air Changed Overnight
September thirteenth. At some point between Wednesday and Thursday, fall arrived. Not officially, officially it's still ten days away, but the air didn't check the calendar. I wok…
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The Cups Went Cold
September second. It's Labor Day, which means Simone texted at nine asking if I had anything going on, and I said no, which was true, and twenty minutes later she was at the door…
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The Pigeon Was Not Sorry
August twenty-second. The bird did not announce itself. There was no warning, no shadow, no rustle, just a sudden, extremely solid impact against the back of my skull, and then a…
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The Strap Was Not Latched
July twentieth. The connector was not latched. I know this now with the kind of certainty you only get after a stranger puts their hand briefly in the air in front of you at an in…
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The Second Bag Was Mine
June twenty-eighth. I want to be clear that I almost didn't go. Simone texted at five-forty-seven on a Thursday, just the address, then 'outdoor movie starts at eight, bring a lay…
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The Grass Was Wet and I Stayed Anyway
June sixth. The show started at seven-thirty and I got there at seven and stood at the edge of the lawn for a few minutes trying to figure out where to put myself, which is a thin…
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Gerald Gets a Neighbor
May twenty-sixth. The succulent was three dollars and ninety-nine cents at the hardware store on the corner, which also sells birdseed and replacement drawer pulls and, apparently…
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The Salt Shakers Were Very Clean After That
May fourth. Simone asked me on Thursday if I was seeing anyone. Not in a pointed way, we'd been doing side-work between the lunch and dinner rush, the restaurant empty in that spe…
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The Eggs Were Fine, Actually
April twenty-third. The note card is still on the counter. I keep not moving it, which is its own kind of decision. Gerald is trailing a new vine toward the window and the collaps…
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Pivot. No, the Other Way. No,
April twelfth. The couch was not that big. That is the thing I keep coming back to. By any reasonable standard, it was a normal-sized couch. A loveseat, technically. And yet someh…
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It Pivots, We Were Told
April first. For the record, I am writing this with arms that feel like overcooked pasta, and that is a completely honest description of my current physical state. Simone texted m…
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I Signed Up and Then I Showed Up
March tenth. Last Saturday was the final session. I keep starting sentences about it and stopping, not because I don't have anything to say but because everything I have to say so…
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After the Call
February sixteenth. Simone called her dad from the break room. I know because I was already there when she walked in, and she said, quietly, already dialing, "I'm just going to ca…
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The Bag Is in the Bagging Area
February fifth. The self-checkout machine at the grocery store does not believe I am a real person. I don't mean that philosophically. I mean that I placed the reusable bag in the…
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The Pause Before the Mascara
December twenty-third. Simone came over before the shift because it made more sense than her going home first, and we ended up in the bathroom at the same time the way you do when…
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Longer Than We Meant To
December twelfth. We both had the day off at the same time, which happens less often than you'd think, and Simone texted at some point the night before to say she'd heard there wa…
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The Whale Was Just the Beginning
December first. It started with a whale. Specifically, a humpback whale that had been singing the same song for decades with no response, I read one sentence about it in a book I…
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Just Me and the Vacuum of Space
October twenty-ninth. I bought one ticket. Middle of the row, a little left of center, the way my dad always insisted was the correct seat. I went by myself on a Tuesday night to…
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The Part Where Nobody Goes Home Yet
October seventh. We both had the same kind of day, not bad, exactly, just the kind where you spend seven hours doing something that required your whole body and your whole face an…
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The Playlist I Built and iTunes Ate
September twenty-sixth. I spent the better part of tonight in a standoff with iTunes. Not a dramatic one, just the low-grade, persistent kind, where you keep clicking the same thi…
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The Number I Wrote Down in July
September fifteenth. I did the thing I wrote down that I wanted to do, not the big thing, just the small one. I tracked the grocery spending for the month. Not obsessively, not wi…
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The Rigatoni Question
August twenty-fourth. There is a letter on my kitchen counter. It's been there for a little while now, Carol's, the fourth one, the one with the thing about my mother inside it th…
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The Lip Liner I'd Given Up On
August second. I have been looking for a specific lip liner since June. I thought it fell behind the radiator. I thought I left it at work. I had, at some point in July, quietly a…
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All the Quarters We Had
July eleventh. My building's laundry machine decided last Saturday was a good time to stop working mid-cycle, which is how I ended up at the laundromat on a ninety-degree afternoo…
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The Man Who Ordered Black Coffee and Wanted Nothing Else
June nineteenth. There was a man at the café this afternoon, the one on the corner I end up at when I don't have a plan, who ordered black coffee, sat down by the window, and did…
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The Ring Mark on the Table
June eighth. We said coffee. Not lunch, not plans, just coffee, which is a word that is supposed to mean forty minutes and then back to your Saturday. Simone found a table by the…
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The Three Seconds Before You Know What Your Face Is Doing
May seventeenth. Somebody said "we have an announcement" and I did that thing where your stomach does a full rotation before your brain has caught up. The table went quiet for may…
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We Actually Finished
April third. Here is what I remember most clearly about crossing that finish line: I was not ready to be done. Not in the way where you feel strong, in the way where your brain ha…
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One Drink, They Said
March twenty-third. The original number was one. One drink, quick, after the shift, Simone said it like a plan with an exit built in, and I agreed the same way. That was a Saturda…
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We Said Two Hours
March first. The original plan, and I want to be precise about this, was two hours. Simone suggested the library because the café gets loud after seven, and I agreed because I had…
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The Yes I Didn't Think About
February eighteenth. Here is the exact sequence of events: Simone mentioned it during a lull, somewhere between the dinner rush thinning out and the point where we start consolida…
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Basically Darts, She Said
February seventh. Here is what Simone told me: axe throwing is basically darts. You just hold it, aim, let go. Low-key. Chill. A thing normal people do on a Thursday evening when…
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The Thing I Agreed To Before I Saw It
January sixteenth. My neighbor knocked at around two in the afternoon and asked if I had twenty minutes. I said yes, because it was Wednesday and I had nowhere to be, and because…
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The Wall Had Notes
January fifth. I signed up for a beginner bouldering session at the climbing gym on Tuesday and did not tell anyone because I knew exactly what would happen if I did: someone woul…
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The Radiator's Terms
December fourteenth. It is forty-one degrees outside and approximately fifty-nine degrees in this apartment, which means the radiator has once again decided that warmth is a sugge…
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The Mirror Gives No Notes
December third. There are exactly twelve minutes between when Simone and I both arrive and when the floor actually opens, and we have somehow filled all twelve of them, every shif…
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Thanksgiving and the Toast Situation
November twenty-second. I want to be clear that I was not attempting anything ambitious. No pie, no biscuits from scratch, no elaborate casserole with three components. I was maki…
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Thinner Is Not a Feature, Simone
October thirty-first. Simone came in with the white box. I clocked it immediately, the iPhone 5 box, sitting on the break room table like a small ceremony waiting to happen. She h…
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The Sentence That Wasn't Mine
October twentieth. There was a couple in the corner booth. I say couple because that seemed right, the body language, the specific way one of them kept looking at the table instea…
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The Pigeon Who Had Opinions
October ninth. There was a pigeon on the break room windowsill for most of our lunch break today. Not flying past, not briefly pausing, sitting. Settled. Looking in at us with the…
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What My Legs Remembered
September twenty-eighth. I went for a run this morning. That sentence should not feel as strange to type as it does. It wasn't dramatic. I woke up at 6:20, couldn't go back to sle…
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One of Us Made a Bowl
September seventeenth. I want to be accurate about what happened. Simone suggested the pottery drop-in at the community center, the same one that does the Wednesday yoga I've been…
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The Yellow Kayak
August fourth. There was a sign. I want to be clear about this, there was an actual sign at the park entrance that said KAYAK RENTALS and had a little arrow, and normally I would…
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Batman Came Up and We Were There for Forty-Five Minutes
July twenty-fourth. I do not remember who brought up the movie first. I think it was Simone, because she said something during sidework about how she had her ticket already and I…
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The Radish Problem
July second. I have a bunch of radishes on my counter and no plan. That is the entire summary of my Saturday morning, and also the logical conclusion of visiting a farmers market…
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Gerald Witnessed Everything and He Will Not Be Testifying
June twenty-first. The smoke detector went off at 6:47 PM and then again at 7:03 PM, which means I had sixteen minutes between alarms during which I apparently learned nothing. He…
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Midnight and a Parking Lot and Aliens, Probably
June tenth. I bought a ticket to the midnight premiere of Prometheus on a Tuesday and told no one until after I'd already done it, which is maybe the purest form of a decision I k…
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Table Seven, Again
May thirtieth. The thing about waitressing is that you can be quite good at it for an entire shift and then, in the final forty minutes, undo a meaningful portion of that goodwill…
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The Cheese Incident, Documented
May nineteenth. The coffee shop by the bus stop was about half full when I got there around two o'clock, and I had picked my usual corner table and was doing nothing particular, n…
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Tuesday Is Not Wednesday and My Arms Know It
May eighth. Wednesday's class was full, I checked the community center schedule Monday night and there it was, that little grayed-out button that might as well say 'sorry, you wai…
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Third Viewing, No Notes
April twenty-seventh. The movie doesn't even open until May fourth and I have already watched the trailer, the full three-minute one, not a TV spot, three times this week. Not in…
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The Tree Did Not Ask Permission
April sixteenth. The cherry tree outside my window bloomed overnight without any warning, which feels on-brand for a tree. I noticed it this morning when I went to check if it was…
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One Footnote and Then Four Hours
April fifth. It started with the letterpress flyer. The photo has been sitting in my camera roll for two weeks, the flyer from the community center board, the one about the intro…
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May the Odds (and the AMC Parking Situation) Be Ever in Your Favor
March twenty-fifth. I want it on the record that I stood outside the theater for two hours last night and I would do it again. The Hunger Games midnight premiere. I went alone, wh…
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The Wrung-Out Feeling
March fourteenth. I keep trying to describe what the yoga class does and coming up short, which is annoying because I write things for a living, loosely, in the sense that I write…
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The Photo I Haven't Done Anything With
March third. There is a photo in my camera roll from three weeks ago that I have not done anything with. It is a flyer. It is for a letterpress workshop in April, one Saturday, co…
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Man, I Feel Like a Tuesday
February twenty-first. There is a karaoke bar three blocks from my apartment that I have walked past at least forty times without going in. I know this because I have thought abou…
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Rosewood, More or Less
February tenth. I was standing in the CVS last Tuesday for maybe twelve minutes longer than I needed to be, in front of the lipstick display, doing the thing where you hold two co…
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The Foot Goes Where, Exactly
January nineteenth. I went to a yoga class this morning. This is relevant because I have never been to a yoga class before in my life, and I went alone, which means there was no o…
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Forty-Eight Quarters
January eighth. The laundromat on the corner takes exact change only, which I knew, and somehow still managed to show up forty cents short. I've been doing laundry at this place s…
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The Week That Isn't Really a Week
December 28th. There is a specific quality to the days between Christmas and New Year's that I cannot find the right word for. Not sad, exactly. Not lonely, exactly. Just, thin. L…
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The Wall Was My Best Friend
December. The rink smelled like cold air and bad hot chocolate and something faintly metallic, which I now know is just what ice smells like up close. I went alone, which is eithe…
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Four Cans of Chickpeas
I went to the grocery store this morning without a list. I want to be very clear that I knew I was doing this. I stood in the kitchen, thought 'I'll remember,' and left. This is n…
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The Last Quarter Mile
I want to be honest about the last quarter mile. I nearly walked it. Not because my legs gave out, they didn't, technically, but because there was a moment where the math of finis…
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I Had a Whole Script
I'm not going to name the person. That's not what this is about. What this is about is the specific, humbling experience of having a conversation go completely differently than ev…
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The Honey Was Worth It (Mostly)
There is a farmers market two neighborhoods over that runs through October, and I had been meaning to go for three Saturdays in a row. Today I actually went. I want to be very cle…
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The Keys Were Right There
Wednesday. I locked my keys in the car. I want to be clear that I saw them the moment I shut the door, that little silver gleam through the window, keys dangling from the ignition…
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Hot Coffee, Wrong Destination
There are injuries that come with a story, you were doing something interesting, or at least something worth explaining. And then there is what happened to me this morning, which…
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The Coat Was Right There
Thirty minutes. I want to be precise about that. Not five minutes, not a quick confused moment at the door, thirty minutes of standing in the hallway, sitting on the bottom step,…
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The Fire Escape, Three Times
I took the sketchbook outside today. That's the news. That's genuinely the whole update, and I am choosing to count it. It's been sitting on the kitchen table since June, face-up…
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Low Heat, Apparently
Eggs. I have been making scrambled eggs since I was maybe fourteen. I have made them fast, over high heat, pushed around the pan aggressively until they were done, or what I thoug…
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The Boiling Water Revelation
I signed up for the workshop on impulse. The flyer was taped to the community center bulletin board, the same board where I once found a flyer for the pottery class, and the words…
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Twelve Hours and Worth It
It started because I was tired of spending three dollars on iced coffee every time I ran past the coffee shop on my route. Not resentful-tired, just the kind of tired where you do…
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Forty Minutes with a Pigeon
There was a pigeon on my windowsill this morning and I want to be clear that I did nothing, nothing, for the better part of an hour because of him. He showed up around eight-fifte…
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Every Word, Apparently
The thing nobody tells you about waiting two hours in a line that wraps around the side of a brick building is that by the time the doors open, you are already in a great mood. Yo…
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Eleven Minutes I'm Not Getting Back
Here is what happened this morning: I opened my closet at approximately seven forty-five, stood there, and conducted what I can only describe as a formal review. The gray blouse w…
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Miles, Mood, and What the Notebook Knows
Three point two miles. Legs heavy. Mood: complicated. That's what I wrote in the log last Tuesday. I'd only started keeping it a few weeks ago, just a small spiral notebook I grab…
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The Part Where I Buy Three Pastas
Errand day. I made a list. The list had seven things on it, including one that just said 'produce, figure it out,' which is a sign of either confidence or delusion and I'm honestl…
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Ninety Minutes and a Cold Pot
My mom called at like six-fifteen, which is peak dinner-assembly hour in this apartment if I'm being honest with myself about my ambitions as a cook. I had been doing something wi…
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What My Brain Does When the Semester Is Over
The grades are in. The final was turned in weeks ago. By any reasonable measure, my brain is off the clock. And yet. Here I am at half past midnight on the second-to-last night of…
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The Going-Away Dinner That Got Away From Us
It started as a low-key thing. That's the important context. Nadia said she didn't want a big deal, just dinner, just the people she actually talks to every week, nothing dramatic…
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Soup, Basically from Scratch
Thursday morning, mid-October, and I woke up cold in a way that felt like a decision had already been made for me. Not a run decision. A soup decision. I had half a bag of carrots…
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The Umbrella Had No Business
Third of October and the wind has opinions. I was standing at the crosswalk on the corner near the community center, the one with the busted signal that takes forever, and the guy…
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The Night I Stopped Negotiating With Myself
It started the way these things usually do, with me standing in front of the closet at 8pm telling myself it was probably too late to leave, the venue was probably too loud, I pro…
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Twenty-Seven Exposures of Mostly Gerald
I found a disposable camera in the back of a drawer last Tuesday. Yellow Kodak, the kind that costs about eight dollars at a drugstore, still had exposures left on it. I have no m…
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The Rice Was Both Things at Once
August, and I have been sitting in this apartment trying to figure out what to do with myself. Not in a bad way, just in the way where summer gets very quiet and you start eyeing…
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The Thursday I Didn't Talk Myself Out Of
There's a version of that night where I don't go. I had already changed back into my pajama shorts. I was like forty percent committed to watching something on TV and calling it a…
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Four Tries and a Very Sad Cup
It's the middle of July and I've been trying to talk myself out of driving somewhere every time I want iced coffee. The gas, the five dollars, the ten-minute round trip that alway…
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The Bread I Did Not Buy
I got dressed on Wednesday like I had somewhere to be. I did not have somewhere to be. I had a grocery list with four things on it, one of which was bread, and I spent twenty minu…
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The Bird Did That
There's this pigeon that has started showing up on the windowsill outside my kitchen, and today it did something so aggressively stupid that I had to stop writing mid-sentence and…
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The Heat Came Back and I Just Let It
The window has been open since about seven. I didn't plan that, I just woke up, walked to the kitchen, and realized the air coming in felt different. Not the cold-different of Mar…
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The Coin Count
Twenty-three dollars and some change. That's what was in my wallet on Thursday and I had to make it work until the end of the month. Not in a dramatic way, nobody's calling it a c…
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The Text Was Fine. I Was Not Fine.
It was 11:47pm and I was still awake. Not studying. Not doing anything productive. Just lying there in my sweatshirt running through a two-sentence text message like it was a fina…
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The Call and the Floor
Easter Sunday and I called home at two in the afternoon. I don't know why I always think these calls will feel easy. They never feel bad, exactly, nobody said anything wrong, noth…
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The Mirror Does Too Much
There's this thing that happens when I'm getting ready where I think I'm just doing mascara and then fifteen minutes pass and I've apparently been standing at the mirror solving p…
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The Trees Were the Plan
Marcus's birthday. I woke up and the apartment felt too quiet in that specific way it gets when you don't have anywhere to be, and I thought: I'm going to drive somewhere with tre…
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The Cold Is Just Standing There
There is a specific kind of February morning where the light comes in grey and flat and the window fogs at the bottom and you stand there with your coffee for too long just lookin…
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The Starter and I Are Both Works in Progress
February fourteenth and I spent the morning covered in flour. Not on purpose, that's just how sourdough works, apparently. I'd been reading about it for weeks, the way you do when…
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The Kettle Corn Was Worth It
Nine in the morning and it was twenty-eight degrees. I know because I checked my phone before I left and stood in the kitchen for a full minute deciding whether I actually wanted…
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The Lake Was Frozen and I Drove There Anyway
Tuesday. I got in the car at eight-fifteen with a full tank of gas and no actual plan, which is either freedom or a character flaw, and I drove an hour and twenty minutes to a lak…
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What I Did Instead of Making Resolutions
January first. I woke up with no plan, no resolution written in a cute journal, nothing. I had a bag of bread flour I bought impulsively two weeks ago because I watched someone on…
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The Longest Night (Literally, It's the Solstice)
It started with the book. I've been reading Mary Renault's The King Must Die, picked it up from the used bin at the bookstore weeks ago, finally cracked it last Tuesday, and there…
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The Sock That Outlasted October
December tenth and I finally did the laundry. Not the catch-up load, the real one. The one where you move things that have been sitting in the basket long enough to need refolding…
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The Woman at the Pay Phone
The coffee shop clears out fast after eight-thirty. By nine, maybe nine-fifteen, it's down to a few people on laptops and a couple of older men who seem to come here the way other…
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Two Documents Walk Into a Living Room
Here's something that happened this week that I can't stop thinking about. I came home from creative writing class with a paragraph I'd written during an in-class prompt, 'write w…
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The Candle You Actually Remember
Twenty-one arrived on a Sunday. I had half-expected it to feel like something with volume, like the number itself would make noise when it landed. It didn't. It was just me in a r…
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The Waterfall Was Real, The Snacks Were Insufficient
Labor Day weekend and I had exactly one plan, which was to not sit in my apartment for three days straight. A few weeks ago I grabbed a paper map of the state parks within an hour…
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The Lopsided Bowl Situation
There is a thing on my counter right now that I made with my own two hands. I am going to call it a bowl. The woman who taught the class called it a "good first attempt," which I…
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The Part Where You Already Know What Happens
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out three weeks ago and I have seen it once in the theater, which means I have been thinking about it every day since and doing nothing…
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Nine PM and Counting
There is a specific kind of tired that closing shift produces and it is completely unlike any other kind. It is not the tired you get from running or from sitting through a long c…
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Forty Minutes in Any Direction
I didn't plan it. That's the part that made it work, I think. It was Thursday morning, post-July Fourth lull, the kind of week where everything feels slightly unscheduled, and I l…
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Four Stars, One Broken Skip Button
The skip button on my iPod Shuffle stopped working reliably sometime around March and I have done absolutely nothing about it. This is relevant because tonight I got three songs i…
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Something That Actually Required a Pot
There's a point where cereal for dinner stops being a quirky choice and starts being a life pattern. I hit that point sometime last week. Not a dramatic realization, just a quiet…
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The Kind of Rabbit Hole You Don't Mind Falling Into
It started with one chapter. It was supposed to be one chapter, I had every intention of being asleep by eleven. And then somewhere around page sixty I looked up and my room was c…
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The Parking Lot Part
Eight hours on the register and by the end my brain was running on a very specific frequency, the one where you can scan a barcode without looking and say 'did you find everything…
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Twenty Candles and One Ruined Sleeve
The punch got me within ten minutes. Not a big spill, just enough, the kind where you dab at it with a paper napkin and then spend the rest of the night with your arm angled sligh…
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The Night I Made a Sad Volcano
I didn't tell anyone I was going. That's the part I keep coming back to. It started because I walked past the studio on my way home from work last week, the one on the corner near…
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Did You Find Everything Okay
Four hours. That's all it was. Four hours on the register and I came home and stood in front of the open fridge for so long that the little light inside it started to feel like co…
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The Sentence That Wasn't Mine
There's a table near the back of the coffee shop I always aim for when it's free, the one with the slightly wobbly leg that nobody else wants. I had my notebook out, my second cof…
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Forty Minutes There, Two Hours of Dark, Forty Minutes Back
The previews hadn't even started and I was already glad I came. That's the thing about a midnight screening, the decision to go is half the experience. You have to actually choose…
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One Bunch of Tulips for No Reason
It was the kind of cold where your ears go numb before you've made it half a block, and I went to the farmers market anyway. Not because I needed anything. There was nothing on a…
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The Pigeon Who Moved In Without Asking
It started at around two in the afternoon. I was sitting on my bed, laptop open, fully intending to finally look at that Journalism listing again, very productive Tuesday planned,…
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The Midnight Plan I Made at 9pm
There are decisions you make carefully and decisions you make because you're already in your coat. Last night was the second kind. I'd seen the Twilight re-run listed at the dolla…
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Happy Gotcha Day, You Demanding Little Dog
December 23rd. Two years ago today, Biscuit came home. I didn't plan anything elaborate. Honestly, I almost let the date pass without marking it, it's Christmas Eve-eve, everyone'…
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The Trail Was Half Ice and I Went Anyway
December decided to be actual winter this week, which I apparently took as a personal invitation. I drove out to Millbrook State Park on Friday morning with no particular plan, I…
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The Great Pasta Experiment (Results: Inconclusive)
I don't know what came over me. It was a Sunday afternoon in December, the sky was that flat gray color that makes you want to do something with your hands, and I had exactly one…
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The Part Where I Got a Little Lost
Nobody told me there would be a fork about forty minutes in with no signage and two trails that look exactly the same. I picked the left one. I was wrong. I figured this out appro…
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The Raccoon Situation
There is a very specific kind of hubris that comes over a person when they decide, on a slow Sunday morning with nowhere to be, that today is the day they will finally figure out…
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The One Circled Thing
The instructor handed back the first assignment at the end of class today. No fanfare, just a stack of pages face-down on the edge of the desk and a wave toward it, help yourselve…
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3.1 Miles and Change
My legs are currently not speaking to me. I've acknowledged the situation, offered them a reasonable amount of ibuprofen and a couch, and we're in negotiations. This morning was t…
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A Tuesday That Asked Nothing of Me
It's just past eight and I have nowhere to be. That sentence felt strange to type. Not bad-strange, just unfamiliar. The last few weeks have been a steady accumulation of things t…
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The Pasta Experiment (A Crime Scene, Technically)
There is flour in places flour has no business being. I found some on the cabinet door above the stove. I don't know how. I wasn't even near that cabinet. I've been in a strange m…
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What the Clay Decided
I want to be clear about something upfront: I went in thinking I'd be at least decent at this. That is not what happened. It started because I saw a flyer at the rec center, the s…
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The Bird That Stayed
There's a sparrow that has apparently decided my windowsill is interesting. This morning I was sitting on the floor with my coffee going cold beside me, I'd been meaning to open t…
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The Cardinal Didn't Know It Was Doing Me a Favor
There was a cardinal on the fence this morning. I don't know how long he'd been there before I noticed him, I was just sitting on my bed doing nothing, which is something I'm stil…
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The Paragraph That Beat Me
It is June. It is summer. I am inside. There's a textbook open on my desk that I've been technically looking at for about two hours. In that time I have: highlighted three sentenc…
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Five Dollars and I Lost My Mind a Little
The jacket has been on the back of that chair since approximately March. I don't know why I picked it up today, I think I was going to move it to the closet and finally be a perso…
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The List Did Something I Didn't Ask It To
I wasn't trying to make two columns. I opened the notebook because I couldn't sleep past seven and I thought, fine, I'll just write some things down. Be productive. Cross somethin…
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A Wednesday, Technically
It started because someone used the phrase 'just come for an hour' and I have never once in my life successfully treated that as a binding agreement. By eleven I was picking songs…
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The Part Where I Pretended I Was Fine in the Parking Lot
There was a moment last night, standing in someone's backyard with a red plastic cup and café lights going warm above me, where I looked at Sophie across the folding table and tho…
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Everything I Made Is Technically a Bowl
The brochure at the rec center said 'beginner-friendly' and I want everyone to know that is a very generous use of the word friendly. I signed up mostly on a whim, it was pinned t…
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The Succulent Will Survive (Probably)
Easter weekend. No class, no running club, no agenda. Sophie from next door has this succulent she's been nursing back from the dead since February, she overwatered it, which, sam…
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Lauren Conrad Did Not Have to Do Me Like That
Thursday nights have a specific energy right now and that energy is: lie horizontal on the couch and let The Hills make decisions for me. I don't even fully understand why I keep…
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Certified Mail and Other Things Nobody Explains
The post office is not complicated. I know this. I have been inside a post office before. But there is a difference between going to the post office with someone who knows what th…
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I Did the Midnight Showing and I Regret Nothing (Mostly)
Two hours and three minutes. That's how long 10,000 BC is. I know this because I kept track in the dark on my watch, not because I was bored, but because around the 90-minute mark…
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I Don't Know (Said Out Loud, In Front of Everyone)
The professor called on me today. Second week of class, and I genuinely did not know the answer. Not in a 'I blanked' way, in a 'I have no framework for this yet' way. And instead…
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Forty Minutes and a Frozen Lake
There was nothing on my agenda for Saturday. That's not me being poetic, I literally checked my notebook and the only thing written was 'laundry?' with a question mark, which tell…
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The Silk Road Did Not Ask for My Time and Yet Here We Are
It started with a single sentence in a library book I've been meaning to finish since December. One of those offhand mentions, a place name, a route, a casual reference to merchan…
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Six Degrees and Counting
The thermometer on the back of the front door said six degrees this morning. Not six degrees with wind chill, just six degrees, baseline, before the wind even got involved. I stoo…
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December 26th and My Legs Are Filing a Complaint
The tree is still up. There are approximately fourteen containers of leftover Christmas food in the fridge. And I was in the rec center parking lot at 8 a.m. because apparently th…
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3.1 Miles and a Lot of Feelings About It
Finished my first 5K this morning. That sentence looks extremely normal typed out and I keep rereading it like it's going to change. I got there early, obviously, because apparent…
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Thanksgiving Eve, and I Only Dropped One Thing
The butter is on the counter. The flour is everywhere. I have a saucepan that needs stirring every four minutes and I keep forgetting about it until it starts making a noise it sh…
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The Part Where I Didn't Leave Early
Here's what I didn't know about open mic nights: they are not background music. I found this out approximately forty-five seconds after I sat down, when a man in a corduroy jacket…
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Four Loads and a Very Good Reason to Go to Bed Early
My neighbor's washing machine died on Friday. She mentioned it in passing, the way people mention things when they're not actually asking for help, and I said 'I can help you haul…
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The Part Where I Actually Went
It was 7:45 and I was already in my pajama pants. That's the honest version. I had the TV on, some rerun, I wasn't really watching, and my neighbor texted asking if I was coming t…
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Found Money and the Specific Joy of It
There is a jacket hanging on the back of my door that I haven't touched since sometime in March, maybe February. I pulled it down this morning because it's actually cold now, like…
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Seven Words and a Very Long Walk to My Car
I have been thinking about something completely unimportant for approximately four hours and I am tired. Not bad-tired. Just the specific tired that happens when your brain gets h…
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I Made Food Today. Real Food. Allegedly.
The smoke detector went off twice. I want to put that at the top so we're all on the same page before I tell you I'm calling this a success. I've been running almost every morning…
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I Hit Submit and Then Sat Very Still for Ten Minutes
It was past nine when I did it. I wasn't planning to do it tonight, I was planning to look at the page again, maybe read the course description one more time, maybe screenshot it…
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The Cat That Wasn't Mine
There was a grey cat under my window this morning. Not my cat, I don't have a cat, just a cat, sitting in the dirt beneath the backyard bush like it owned the entire square foot o…
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The Machine Always Wins on a Holiday Weekend
July third is a weird shift day. Everyone who comes in is already halfway somewhere else in their head, they order their drinks distracted, they tip in a hurry, and by ten in the…
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The Art of Sitting in the Yard and Calling It a Plan
There is a lawn chair in my backyard that has been there since I was probably twelve. It's the kind of plastic patio chair that leaves a grid pattern on the back of your legs and…
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The Night I Bought One Ticket
Here's the thing about going to a concert alone: everyone I mentioned it to made a face. Not a mean face, more like the face you make when someone tells you they're going to eat a…
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Two Cups and a Lesson in Not Walking Away from the Toaster
It's barely past eight and I have already made one fundamental error this morning. I walked away from the toaster. I know. I know. In my defense, the coffee maker beeped and I got…
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Five Hundred Miles and One Very Stolen Afternoon
I found it on the shelf in the hallway, spine cracked, pages a little soft at the corners the way paperbacks get when they've been read more than once. I didn't even mean to pick…
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The Manuscript That Ate My Evening
It started because I was bored and a little restless and someone on a forum mentioned the Voynich Manuscript in passing like it was nothing. Like it was a normal thing to drop int…
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The Bowl That Should Not Exist (And Why I'm Keeping It)
There's a clay bowl sitting on my passenger seat right now. It is lumpy. One side is noticeably taller than the other. There is a small crack along the rim that the instructor ass…
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Two Weeks Out and I've Already Reorganized My Highlighters Twice
It's 9:47am and I have been sitting at this desk for forty-five minutes. In that time I have: made tea, let it go cold, opened three textbooks, closed two of them, and arranged my…
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The Windows Have Been Closed Since November
April 6th. 4-something in the afternoon. I opened my bedroom window this morning mostly on instinct, the kind of thing you do before you're fully awake, and then I walked back ove…
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Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner (And Nobody Can Make Me Feel Guilty About This)
It is 10:47 PM on a Monday. I have watched Dirty Dancing before, I think four times, maybe five, and tonight I sat down to watch it again and felt zero shame about it. There's som…
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Just Me, a Canyon, and a Gas Station Hot Chocolate
Tuesday. Woke up at 6:30, packed a bag, and drove myself to Starved Rock. No plan beyond 'go somewhere with actual nature.' Spring break has been sitting quietly in the apartment…
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