A catalog of the stuff in my apartment
I’ve never met a dental hygienist who didn’t have the skeptical yet sorrowful air of someone accustomed to being lied to all the time. The wives of mid-scandal politicians have a similar demeanor. It’s a look that says, I’m obliged to pretend that I believe you, but we both know that you don’t floss every […]
There’s a scene in the musical Caroline, or Change where the title character, a maid in 1963 Louisiana, is explaining to 8-year-old Noah, the son of her employer, that God made everything—“the whole world, you and me and this wash machine.” “Did God make the dryer?” Noah asks. “No, the devil made the dryer,” Caroline […]
I didn’t start putting styling products in my hair until the summer after my freshman year of college. The next summer I came out of the closet. Make of that what you will. Despite my hair’s gel-free condition in high school, a classmate we’ll call Elizabeth (not her real name) did turn to me one […]
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 […]
Indirect Objects 