1 Oct 2014

Flappers, Philosophers, and Narrowing Eyes

by | posted in: Culture | 0

I went through a F. Scott Fitzgerald phase in my late teens and early twenties. It was evident to me I had been born in the wrong decade. This opinion wasn’t based on a hatred of the present. It was based on the dresses and haircuts of the past. If I had a time machine which could carry me back to the Roaring Twenties, it would have been fueled solely on a burning desire to give my then-flat chest the glory it was due. Flappers were described as boyishly built, but with faces like roses. They had swinging hair, bobbed short. For balance, strands of pearls hung long and low over rows of nervous fringe. Once a Flapper began to dance, each string leapt to full attention. In animals, we see this with porcupines and hedgehogs…read more

11 Aug 2014

Hey Eeyore, I Think of Your Mother

by | posted in: Parenthood | 0

You had one, right? Someone cut your cloth into odd oblongs. Someone assembled the pieces and drove straight pins through to hold them together. She chose a new needle that was thick and sharp. She wet and twisted the scraggly end of grey thread in her mouth, making a stiff point to plunge through the needle’s eye. One strand, doubled over is doubly strong. She pulled until the ends matched and looped them into a tangle large enough to plug your cloth… read more