Dining Dilemma
First published in Westchester Magazine’s August 2011 issue. Read the original here.
My parents’ dining room table is early 20th-century mahogany, with solid columnated legs and comfortable seating for six—eight if necessary, 10 on desperate family occasions. In the morning, it’s newspaper sprawl and pots of coffee. In the afternoon, laptops and lunch. Family dinner, whether for [...]
Not for Navigational Purposes
First published on The Morning News on April 27, 2011. Read the original here.
Present
Lenni and I take turns changing in the shelter of the bus stop outside the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, in San Juan. It’s August, we’ve been friends for two decades, but this is the first time Lenni and I have traveled [...]
How to do Astrology
First published on The Morning News on October 20, 2010. Read the original with comments here.
“I’m not at all psychic. Any astrologer who says they’re psychic you must run away from, because it means they don’t want to do the math.”
This is one of the first things astrologer and writer Susan Miller says [...]
On Richard Halliburton’s The Glorious Adventure
First published in Tin House #45, Fall 2010.
I first came across Richard Halliburton during a layover in Brooklyn on my way from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New Orleans. I was moving because I’d failed to find work as a deckhand in the Caribbean, my goal for the winter. The main problem was I [...]
My Country, My Train, My K-Hole
First published in The Morning News on June 30, 2010. Read the original here.
The train from Chicago to New Orleans passes through Kankakee, Homewood, and Yazoo City; names that evoke images of wagon trains and episodes of Dr. Quinn. I don’t know most of this country.
Were I to draw a map, the Northeast would be [...]
Missing the Point
Originally published in The New York Post. 4/2/2009. Read the original (w/ comments) here.
FOR seven years, I read Missed Connections on Craigslist where would-be star-crossed lovers leave messages for those they’d been too shy to talk to. Living in a city as big as New York, I figured love could bump into me at any [...]
