My father taught me to shave by handing me a Norelco. That was the extent of his instruction. I rubbed the buzzing thing over my face until the fuzz was gone, and thus was I initiated into a timeless rite of manhood. I don’t know how electric razors work, but it feels like they yank […]
Author: Zac Thompson
Bathroom Scale
For most of my adulthood, my weight has been an unwavering 158 pounds. Recently, the number has begun to creep higher, presumably due to my slowing metabolism and not any changes to my diet or fitness routine. After all, altering those things never had an impact before. Lord knows I tried. In my mid-twenties, I […]
Arkansas Pillow
There are those who seem to have boundless confidence in the greatness of their home states. Such people usually come from Texas or California. The unhesitating state pride strikes me as unearned in one of those cases, but I’m too polite to get specific. I come from Arkansas, which inspires more complicated feelings, especially in […]
The Aeneid
Virgil can supposedly tell you the future. You just open the poet’s works at random, point a finger, and voilà. There’s your fortune. Several years ago, I attempted this method of divination—known as the Virgilian lottery or the Sortes Virgilianae if you want to get insufferable about it—and landed on one of the passages in […]