Tell me Story

Waiting at the DMV yesterday, I watched a middle-aged man who I guessed to be a Native American, a middle-aged American white woman of indeterminate ethnic extraction, and a middle-aged American black man who looked to be a veteran, bonding over their love of chocolate. The American Indian man’s face split wide with laughter as they all shared their struggles with the same weight-loss program. Apparently, it limited their chocolate intake. The conversation began when the American black man spun...

A car should never sound like a World War II bomber. I’m no mechanic but even I know that. This was my first thought after I turned the key in the ignition and a terrible rumbling noise erupted from underneath me. Violently rattling, shuttering at the concussive rhythm of tiny explosions, my parked car felt like I was piloting the Memphis Belle over hostile Nazi Germany. That wasn’t a good sign. I find that anytime you need to imagine Nazi Germany to make sense of your life this is a clear indication something is terribly wrong...

It’s raining on a Friday night in San Francisco and you’re partying in a plush five-story townhouse on Market Street, up there in the swank homes at the top of the Castro district. You snort a couple rails of crystal because it’s Friday and these are your friends; twenty minutes later, you chase the crystal with a few rails of coke and you’re flying now, you can feel your brain sizzling like the fried egg in that ancient anti-drug commercial, fully aware that this is your brain on drugs. You hop...

I thought about the progress of American men while I was standing in the Grove in Los Angeles. It’s a mall that serves as a playground for tourists, rich Angelenos, and celebrities who want to be spotted by the paparazzi and prove in the fan mags that “they’re just like us.” None of those people are why I was thinking about the cycles of American men. It was my nephew. We were walking to see Guardians of the Galaxy at the Grove theater. He and I would do “boy’s night out,” as he liked to call them...

My sister and I have an annual tradition—every year we go shopping on Christmas Eve. I love the swarming madness and sharp elbows of holiday shoppers. The irony delights me. One of my sister’s gifts, each year, is to go with me. She’s always done with her shopping. After long anxious hours pushing through a packed mall, we were now alone, rolling along southern Jersey streets, warm in her family-sized SUV. She was driving us to Target, to enjoy the last bits of our harried Christmas shopping ritual...