Untitled I am three years old, and I’m standing in the kitchen with my mother on a green spring morning. Her sable hair is still worn long, and capers about her shoulders in curls that she bought at a salon. She stands over the kitchen counter of our old house in Tennessee, packing a real picnic basket, wearing a blue, green, and yellow plaid sundress that I believe is the most beautiful raiment to be found anywhere on the earth. It is my favorite dress of hers, and when she wears it, she transforms into a creature more radiant than anything else God ever made.Untitled
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At the DoorAt the DoorAt the Door
What I can remember is that my great-grandmother Elizabeth was skeletal, with loose, pale purple skin spread haphazardly over her bones, brittle white hair that matched her gown and the smelly sheets of the home-care hospital bed in which she was perpetually bound, and beady dark eyes that glistened with a diminished fierceness, like her teeth did when, showing them, she laughed at you. Aside from one dark memory of Elizabeth reading a children’s book to me, aged two and a half, while I tried not to wrinkle my nose impolitely, that’s all that I have. But my father likes to recall, with a pushy jovialit
The Best FriendsThe Best FriendsThe Best Friends
“Well, it’s me,” Dad blusters after my hello. “Hope I’m not calling too late. You can’t already be asleep?” Nah, I say, I’m in college, so anytime before three in the morning is fair game. I’m bouncing a little on the balls of my feet. It’s weird, I was just about to call you, Dad, ‘cause I checked my e-mail earlier and I finally heard back from the creative writing people— “I’m forced to hide out in the garage, avoiding your mother and your grandmother and I just wanted to talk to you for a bit. I don’t have that long, really.
This adorable cat is making me sneeze.
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It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.
And I'm taking this moment to apologize for being so slow about commenting on things of yours. I think to myself, Today I'll get on dA and make comments to people whose work I really care about! And then Responsibility comes along and says, Hahaha, that's what you think.
But it will happen, oh yes it will.
(Sorry...tis late)
Every nonfiction piece I've been writing seems to turn into some depressing episode. And the more I think about it, the more I'm realizing I don't think I've read any nonfiction that didn't end on a relatively dark note, y'know? I mean, I know we're supposed to draw meaning from the mundane, etc., but it all seems pretty down and out to me. At least from what I've read/written!
So... any happy nonfiction on your end? Or maybe somebody who's written some I can check out?
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Superman? Here I am.
Erm, the only writers I know whose nonfiction isn't all dark are David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell. But even they discuss serious matters in their pieces--they can just be incredibly funny about it. I daresay you've already noted Mr. Sedaris's extreme talent, eh?
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Superman? Here I am.
By the way, I know we're both crazy busy, but that's no excuse for me not, like, calling. I miss you.
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Superman? Here I am.
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