Childhood I am six, or maybe seven. We move to a new house and the house next door is a perfect match for ours, right down to the two girls the same age as my sister and I. The main difference is that their house is missing an added sunroom and at their house, the...
Like most women I've spent this week thinking about my stories. I have been kept up at night by the stories of my friends and things that happened to me. Stories of men grabbing me, things men said to me, strangers, bosses, coworkers. The man who grabbed my breast on...
In 1999 I was 30 years old. I was thin, single, and much more professionally successful than anyone with a MA in literature ever thinks she will be. I had been driving a 1977 Nissan Sentra and one winter day, it finally died. The death was not unexpected. For a while...
I was twelve years old the first time I saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show. My older sister was in high school and she had been going with her friends. My parents and I wanted to know what it was all about, so one Saturday night we went. I wore a cowboy hat and boots...
I think you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks that I'm a prude. Even writing the phrase "hard pressed" makes me giggle at all the dirty jokes that could turn into. I have had jobs where knowing when and how to drop the "f bomb" was considered a core...
Warning: If you’ve met me fairly recently, let’s say in the past ten years, then some of what I say here may fall under the heading of TMI. If you’ve known me for a long time then well, you probably already know the story, and if you don’t, it’s not going to be a big...