Writings
A Girl Walks into a Bar
There were two bars at the intersection of Daniel and Penhallow streets in Portsmouth.
The backroom of a Chinese restaurant, the bar on Penhallow felt like an afterthought. No windows, just a back door flung open, letting the twang of jukebox country-western music...
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Mariners Village
I moved to Mariner's Village in 1981, the day after an F-11 plane crashed two blocks away from our new home. My husband, toddler son and I dragged boxes through onlookers, military personnel and dogs sniffing out the plane's detritus.
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Crash Landing January 30, 1981
"You better come look," my husband said, pointing at a widening cloud of black smoke in the sky.
I made my way to the porch, pushing aside the green garbage bags that held everything we owned. We were moving from the sagging...
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Three Readings of the Wife of Bath
A few years ago a colleague and I were talking about sexual harassment on the New England campus where we both worked. "Of course," she said, "no one would try anything like that with us!" Secretly flattered at her inclusion, I said nothing...
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Clips
Crackup at Radio City
"Will the party from the psychiatric wing of New York University Hospital please come to the front desk?"
Up to that moment, I'd been trying my best to blend in with the clusters of Boy Scouts, the nuns in their habits, the tourists escaping the heat. READ MORE
8 Million Stories:
Picture Perfect at the Bronx DMV
CONAN O'BRIEN HAS been comparing L.A. favorably to New York since he landed, way before his recent swipe at nearby Newark's crime rate. Watching a clip from The Tonight Show in a cab, I saw O’Brien riffing on his new L.A. driver's license photo. READ MORE
The Wise Plumbers
LAST December, my 28-year-old son, Joshua, was in a residential treatment center, after battling alcoholism on his own for two years. Whenever "I'll Be Home for Christmas," played, I had to get to some place private quickly, to struggle with my despair alone. READ MORE
Mourning Person
If there was ever a time not to buy clothes, it is now. But I
have a new office job after years of working at home. I need
to pass as a professional woman. It is not just the bad
economy muting my urge to shop—about a year ago
my only son, Josh, died of anaccidental overdose.
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