A catalog of the stuff in my apartment
I have three sisters—an excessive quantity by contemporary standards, though far from the most egregious display of fecundity I’ve ever seen. That would have to be the Duggars, the conservative Christian fertility cultists–turned–reality TV stars famous for having 19 children and Lord only knows how many denim maxi dresses. As it happens, the family’s compound […]
Pablo Picasso’s 1934 painting Deux personnages (La Lecture) depicts two young women reading, sexily. The figure on the left is the painter’s lover and muse at the time, Marie-Thérèse Walter, whom he had met when she was 17 and he was 45 and married to somebody else. The other personnage in the picture is one of Marie-Thérèse’s […]
I used to know a bunch of different ways to play solitaire—stop me if this gets too sad. I learned five or six versions of the card game from a babysitter when I was a kid. I guess she took one look at my ventriloquist’s dummy and thought, Here’s a person who’s going to need something […]
You can’t tell from the photo because the print is sepia for some reason, but the wall we’re standing in front of was royal blue. This was in the apartment of Frank’s friend Sam, who had painted each wall in the place a different bright primary color. I was going to strain for a Skittles […]
I come from an era before parents limited screen time. In fact, “screen time” wasn’t even a term anybody used when I was a kid, seeing as how smartphones and the internet weren’t around yet. Television, for its part, was widely regarded as garbage yet voraciously consumed. Much like White Claw Hard Seltzer today. Although […]
Christmastime is the season when I subject my friends and family members to light verse. I usually write a cutesy little poem for the holiday card that my husband and I send out. I have been known to inflict my galloping rhymes on holiday get-togethers as well. The text of this year’s card, which is […]
My husband, Frank, and I have three separate holiday traditions that involve Judy Garland. And yet I balk when anyone suggests I’m a Kinsey 6. The Judy festivities begin on whatever day in early December when we install a Christmas tree and hang our stockings on the bookshelf with care (we don’t have a mantel). […]
When I was 5, my mother and I planted a vegetable garden in our backyard. Then I broke my arm, leaving her to do most of the weeding. When she tells this story, she acts like I let her down. She’s joking (I think), but it’s also true that the tale’s intermingling of gardening and […]
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 […]
Indirect Objects 