What the Paper Knows
April twenty-seventh. The workshop costs what it costs. I have known the number for three weeks, it was on the flyer at the gear shop, printed in small type at the bottom right co…
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25 entries tagged #thehartwells.
What the Margin Said
April fifth. The workshop flyer has been sitting folded on the counter for about two weeks. I brought it home from the gear shop the same way I bring most things home, without ful…
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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 Second Tuesday
November fifth. The shoes were the same ones. Two sizes too wide, velcro closure, the kind of rubber-soled grip that makes you feel like you are probably doing something right eve…
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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 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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The Image Did Most of the Work
February fourteenth. There is a photograph on the windowsill, between the collapsed bowl and the letterpress card, that has been there since May. I placed it without ceremony and…
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Smaller Than I Remembered
February third. The photograph was never the point. I think I knew that somewhere around the second bus trip, when I got off at the stop and walked the block and stood in front of…
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The Hydrant Was There and So Was I
June seventeenth. I took the camera outside today. Not for a project. I want to be very clear about that. I had to return a library book, the branch on the next block, a four-minu…
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The Particular Stillness
February twenty-seventh. There is a thing I do with my phone when I am thinking about something I am not ready to think about out loud. I hold it face-down, or I open it and look…
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The Lobby in November
November ninth. There is a particular experience of walking into a room you already own, a class you've been to six times, a space you know by its smell and its particular tempera…
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Just a Thing I Write
There was a draft sitting in my documents folder for, I want to say a few weeks, but honestly it was longer than that. I kept opening it, moving a sentence around, closing it agai…
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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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Who Is the Reader
There is a question written in blue pen in the margin of my returned essay. Not a correction, the instructor didn't mark anything wrong. Just a question, four words, with no quest…
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The Class That Named What I Was Already Doing
Last night I turned in my final piece for Creative Writing and then just... sat there. Didn't open the laptop. Didn't check anything. Just sat on the couch with the printed pages…
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Someone Read to the End
Here's the thing about burying a sentence at the bottom of a post: it only works if nobody gets there. I published that fall routines post five weeks into the semester and told my…
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A Name I Wasn't Expecting
Late August. The message came in through the blog contact form, which I forget exists for weeks at a time, then remember exists all at once when something actually lands in it. It…
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The Draft That Knew Before I Did
It started as a normal blog post. I sat down tonight to write something about the first Creative Writing class, you know, a recap, a little reflection, maybe a line or two about h…
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What I Actually Meant to Say
not for the blog. That's what I typed at the top of this document four months ago when I realized I was writing a mission statement for myself instead of a post. I saved it. Close…
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The Essay
I turned this in three weeks ago. Professor Alderman read it, handed it back, and said, quietly, like she didn't want to make a thing of it, that I should keep writing the real st…
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The Tab I Closed
There was a draft open in another tab for most of the semester. I'd written it in August, one of those documents where you type fast and then immediately title it 'not for the blo…
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What I Did With the Draft
There was a document sitting in a folder on my laptop, titled, embarrassingly, 'not for the blog', that I have been opening and closing since last July. Nine months. I know that b…
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The Footnote That Got Out of Hand
The post that went up today started as a footnote. I mean that literally. A few weeks ago I published that list, things I ate this week that were better than expected, very seriou…
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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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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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