The rain finally stopped. We’ll be without it for several days now. The abnormally cold spring ended. The morning of the summer solstice dawned bright and steamy hot. The five-year-old girl I call The Mandrake came to the door before noon, wearing next to nothing, asking for a popsicle to cool down. Later, I drove the grandmother of the Baker Street Irregulars downtown to the Juneteenth festival, with her disabled girl in tow. The grandmother was fretting, because the... Read more
There was a bit of a tempest last weekend. I’m known for my candor, when I speak about myself. But I am very careful to respect the privacy of the children in the neighborhood, and my own child. That’s why I give the children fanciful names, and I don’t describe their appearance very often. When they tell me their stories, and I write what they say, I change identifying details for safety’s sake. Trust me when I tell you,... Read more
Mountains Older than Bones On Wednesday, we went to Moundsville. “Going to Moundsville” is a slang term for going to jail around the Valley, because they have a historic state prison that’s now a museum. There is an electric chair name Old Sparky, and other things I never want to see, on display for fifteen dollars. But Moundsville also has an ancient Adena burial mound, the grave of at least three prehistoric humans, a much bigger mound than the... Read more
At the end of the world, I went swimming. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about what was going on around me. But I couldn’t think of anything I could do about any of it just that afternoon, so I turned off the computer and put my phone in my purse. I dropped Michael off at work, and Adrienne and I went to the beach, to go swimming. When you live in Northern Appalachia, “going to the beach” means... Read more
I just want to talk about what America has become, these past few months. I have a friend who is, most definitely, an American. She was born here in the United States of America, to citizen parents. She is Caucasian and looks Caucasian, grew up in Michigan and has a Michigan accent. She has several children. They are natural born citizens, but they are Latin. They have dark brown eyes and black hair, and have been to Mexico and... Read more
I came out in the morning, to find the garden a mess. The sandbox was unlidded– apparently, it had been unlidded all night. When the sandbox is left unlidded, Charlie the cat uses it for a litter box. This is especially irksome because she never uses her litter box for a litter box. She does her business in the bushes, unless the sandbox is open. Besides the sandbox being open, the bag of diatomaceous earth I keep to kill the... Read more
Suppose you were the richest man in the world. Suppose you could have and do every single thing that you wanted, with no trouble, because you were the richest man in the world. If it’s physically possible to have, you could have it. Your house is paid off. If you want another house, you can buy it. If you want a house that somebody else is living in, you can offer them a ridiculously high sum of money and... Read more
The rain went on until I thought I’d go mad. Adrienne had her last day of seventh grade, in a gray drizzle. The cat sulked on the porch, glaring at the sloppy overgrown grass. The guinea pig sulked in her cage, because she couldn’t go out to nibble the clover. Jimmy the Mechanic had to put off the repairs and maintenance he’d planned on Sacre Bleu, which meant the air conditioning didn’t work properly, but that hardly mattered because it... Read more
At the end of the world, I got my house ready for a party. I told the Artful Dodgers I was baking cookies in the afternoon. This was the day of the Mandrake’s graduation from preschool, and I wanted to treat them to something. I didn’t have any money to buy her a present, but I had a package of cake mix, and a very good recipe for cake mix cookies with sprinkles. The children promised me they’d be... Read more
I just want to remind you that every choice our government makes has real consequences, for real people. Everybody likes it when I tell stories about the children who live in LaBelle: Jimmy’s boy, the Baker Street Irregulars, the Artful Dodgers. People sometimes wish they could see pictures (which I don’t post publicly, because they’re somebody else’s minor children of course). Once in awhile, somebody mails me clothes or another little gift for one of them. You should know that,... Read more
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