Sunday Morning

Inside my skull, every heartbeat strikes like a timpani mallet. Outside, it is blindingly bright. Sunlight pierces my eyeballs with the force of a rapier thrust. I close them in repentance. Whose idea was the tequila? I am shaky, clammy with crapulence. My stomach rumbles, portending rebellion, a traitorous uprising. The dog whimpers, wanting to go out. I breathe in. I breathe out. On the air, there is evidence of canine flatulence. Eyes still shut, I reach for the Tylenol, fingers scrabbling with the child-proof lid. I breathe in. I breathe out. If I remain perfectly still, it doesn’t hurt. 

Inspired by Saturday Afternoon. Photo by And-One.

Saturday Afternoon

Outside the tiniest of snowflakes float. Inside, sunlight from the window hits the dust motes hovering above the hot air vent. The furnace has kicked in, rumbling melodically from the basement. The fridge hums. The cat on my lap purrs. I flip a page in my book. I notice the soft sound of my rough fingertips moving over paper. I breathe in. I breathe out. A gust of wind outside now. The snow scatters—the last of the autumn leaves dance. The cat shifts her weight, resettling on me. I breathe in. I breathe out. I turn the next page.

Inspired by the afternoon. Photo by NetPix.

Close Enough

By the time I decided to shave off my first real beard, I’d pretty much forgotten how—mostly because I’d started growing it not long after I started shaving at all, and years after my father had left, taking with him any benefit I might’ve gained from his example of proper technique.

Without that, I attacked my face with an ignorance fed mostly by advertising that emphasized the importance of closeness, shaving this way and that, until all trace of stubble was gone, leaving me with a painful appreciation of how some things are better when they’re just close enough.

Inspired by Leda and the Pelican. Image by Gemini, proving that the AI doesn't know how human males shave any better than I did back then.

Leda and the Pelican

Some women have good legs. Others have nice hair. I have a beautiful décolletage. Despite a decade of sunny seasons as an archaeologist. Not a line nor wrinkle. I slather sunscreen and cosset it in silk scarves, serum it, and gua sha it. But here’s something: I've just been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease. So now I take a pill every morning for the rest of my life. Because if my dead thyroid was left to moulder, it would be replaced by a goitre. A FUCKING GOITRE. I’m sure there’s a Greek or German cautionary tale about vanity in this somewhere.

Inspired by Let’s Not Talk. Image of my 63-year-old neck. No filter, no goitre.

Game Day Rituals

In pursuit of sporting greatness, I could not rely on talent, of which, the evidence demonstrated, I had little. Luck, then. To attract it, I employed intricately constructed stratagems. Example: I pulled my left skate on, then the right. Then I laced the left one up, then the right. 

      This never led to athletic stardom, but it did leave me with life-long rituals to follow during championship runs—like wearing the team jersey, t-shirt, and fan socks. And never laundering them during a win streak. These necessary measures have led to repeated tensions in the household at otherwise joyous moments. 

Inspired by an epic playoff and World Series run (thank you, Blue Jays). Image posted by the Toronto Blue Jays.

Whose Home Turf is it?

One drizzly March day, laden with shopping bags, I reached my street corner when I noticed a group of women gabbing on the sidewalk across from me—totally oblivious to anything around them including their dogs barking furiously and pulling on their leads. I vaguely wondered at this, then rounded the corner and saw the reason: a large stray—no, my mind registered—a coyote, looking wet, pissed off and bedraggled. I froze, but it took no notice of me. The light turned green. The cars stopped. And it sauntered across the intersection towards High Park and out of sight.

Inspired by Oooh, Ahhh. Photo by Harry Collins.

Ooooh, Ahhhh

At an intersection in the hood, people are mesmerized. Jaws are dropping. Arms straightened out, fingers pointing. They are halting their cars, scooters and strollers to get viral photos.
     Standing in the street in clusters, gazing and smiling, in wonderment and disbelief. A site for their eyes to behold.
     It’s not the moon, a glorious pink cloud sunset or the incredible rich colours of the changing leaves. No, it’s a giant inflatable pumpkin. A Costco limited-edition private stock. Engulfing a corner lot and causing a seemingly stirring of the soul.
     Wake up from brain rot. Forget 67. Join a luddite renaissance movement.

Inspired by this week’s events. Illustration by Ross Hendrick.

Midsommar

How lucky was she to have a boyfriend so cool and so confident that he didn’t care what the dullards around him might think, who had such a body that looked good in whatever he wore, and who wasn’t afraid to show it off now and then?

So, to hell with Shakespeare in the Park, and to hell with everyone staring as he picked his way down the crowded hillside. But most of all, to hell with her having to explain all the time why her boyfriend was wearing a skirt.
     “It’s not a skirt,” she sneered. “It’s a sarong.”

Inspired by Lifelong Pals. Image by Bing.

Lifelong Pals

A band of rogues, were they, everything a ribald brag or pun-ish diss. Fact or fiction, it mattered not. Lewd mockery and exaggeration were their tools of discourse. This, they would always be: lusty, with no time for foolish love. They’d never waste time on feelings.

       They married, divorced, retired. Eventually they did discuss feelings—in their knees, backs and hips, which hurt. Harkening back to carnal conquests, Mercutio deemed these “war wounds.” Over beers, they gabbed about their ailments, though never about ED or male pattern baldness. It went entirely unremarked that Benvolio had an impressive set of man-breasts.

Inspired by Let’s Not Talk. Image from Baz Lurhman’s 1996 film, Romeo + Juliet, Act 2 Scene 4.

Like, I’m Going To Tell You

Once, when I worked at a hospital Charitable Foundation drafting fundraising reports with impossible deadlines, I found in the break room a box of buttons left there by HR. It was an employee wellness initiative. On each button was a different mood statement: “Grateful,” “Grumpy,” “I need a hug.” We were to pin on a button to share how we felt that day. I laughed, eyeing the one that said “Overwhelmed.” No one wore any of the buttons and a month later when I asked to work remotely so I could take care of my ailing mother, they let me go.

Inspired by Let’s Not Talk. Image based on a blank button by PhotoStockImage.

Let’s Not Talk

My workplace wants to start a dialogue about menopause. Why? Purportedly because we need to de-stigmatize it. For fuck’s sake it’s not an EDI issue. I get it on one hand, but do I really want to talk about menopause and my vagina at work? Not particularly. Nor do I want my male colleagues evaluating my thermodynamics at the office or worse, thinking there is a cohort of us running around with brain fog unable to perform. Should we next talk about andropause and shrivelling penises? I can see the headline, TSE crashes in the wake of shrinking confidence.

Inspired by Pricks and Stones. Image by Marysol Ra.

Because it Might be his Nickname.

If you’ve even heard of Nelson Algren, it’s likely because of his Three Rules of Life: “Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.”

I can certainly understand—if not relate to—One and Three, but I’d like everyone to know that Mom’s Restaurant in Midland was one of the high points of my last visit to cottage country.
     Still, having invalidated Rule Two, allow me to humbly offer a replacement: “Never sit for a shave from a barber named Nick.”

Inspired by Pricks and Stones. Photo by the author.

Pricks and Stones

We all had nicknames growing up. Mine was Peanut Head, mercifully truncated to Peanut by about grade four. Through Rich I’ve realized that nobody does nicknames like the Brits. He went to Sir Montgomery of Alamein, an all-boys school, so you can imagine. His soubriquet was Liam, a Delphic reference to a particular left-legged play-hogging footballer. There was also a kid who had a plummy voice. He’d been christened John Simpson, but Monty’d Nom Nimnom. Apparently, he did not care as he was a popular chap. He was also the fastest runner at the school. Fortissimus Quisque Tantum Superstes, dear boy.

Inspired by Such Potential. Painting—Harrow School Football Field—by Thomas M. Henry, 1887.

Such Potential

Roger often thought about the band, and what they could have been, if creative differences hadn’t derailed them. They always argued over everything. Even their name. At the very beginning, Johnny inexplicably insisted on “The Cuddles,” but that sucked for a bad-boy thrash metal band. The other guys came up with some great ideas. One Eyed Snake. The Hairy Reems. Wank. The Wad. Spunk. Spunkwad. Peter and the Pud Pullers. But they just couldn’t decide. If only they’d settled on one, and got on with the music. They peaked one Saturday in ’84, playing air guitar down in Eric’s basement.

Inspired by Star Bright. Image by Virginia Turbett.

Knitting World

She was in love with the wool—not so much the knitting. Or maybe it was the idea of crafting something into life. She didn’t delve too deep. She just bought: canary yellow merino, blue sky mohair, Aran creamsicle prints—colours and textures you could sink into piled high. Imagine the cozy afghan for the couch in her mountainside cottage; the chunky sweater she would make for him; the tiny baby booties; the striped scarf for her daughter-to-be. It was worth learning the patterns for that—no matter how many times she has to unravel her stitches and start again.

Inspired by Star Bright. Photo by Delpixel.

Star Bright

Confidence is abundant without awareness of self. This is what propelled me into auditioning for a play in Grade 9. I had no talent, and was blissfully oblivious. Even my dad’s shaming raised eyebrows deterred me not.
     I rehearsed my dance routine to Lucky Star for weeks under the direction of my then 11-year-old sister. I didn’t get the part. But there was so much joy in creating the choreography and endless singing to Madonna; we still laugh about it today. By Grade 10, my ego enveloped me like an Alien from the Body Snatchers. I never auditioned again.

Inspired by Sibilance. Image By Dzmitry Habrus.

Sibilance

Grade 8 music, 1974, and Miss Matthews has just introduced us to Roberta Flack. We are hers for the next 40 minutes, and she’s determined to teach this captive choir to sing Killing Me Softly with His Song. She plays our first attempt back at us from a big reel-to-reel she’s hooked up to the music room’s sound system, so that we can hear for ourselves how harsh all the s-words sound. The trick she tells us it to sing them as if they start with the letter Z, and so by the second take we’re already zinging with ztyle.

Inspired by Wrapped Up Like a Douche. Image by Atlantic Records.

Wrapped Up Like a Douche

Malapropping through the Eighties, everyone sang She’s So Popular instead of Jeu Sans Frontières. But since I was a kid, I’ve excelled at getting lyrics wrong. At six, instead of sending our Queen victorious, I wished her “Fletcher’s Castoria, Happy and Gloria.” Younger still, I warbled to the Singing Nun, “Domma-nick-a-nick-a-nick, une After Eight c’est all I want . . .”

But I loved to sing, and still do. I think I sound like Carole King. Dan says I bray like a donkey. A high-school teacher once called me Joanie. I thought Joni Mitchell. He meant Joan Baez. It was probably the moustache.

Inspired by Ron’s take on Games Without Frontiers. Photo by 20th Century Fox.

The Art of the Bluff

He took another peek. A 7-2 offsuit, a really raw deal. He’d have to bluff on it. He glanced around the table. Emannuel looked smug, but he always did. He was weak. Keir looked like that Muppet, Beaker—he’d cave for sure. So would the Dutchman next to him. The kraut, he wasn’t sure about. His eyes shifted onto Giorgia, who was unfathomable; he’d like to get her alone sometime. “Raise,” he said, pushing his memecoin stack forward. He finally looked across at Volodymyr. 

      “Donald, you haven’t got the cards,” Volodymyr said. “Too bad there's no trump in this game.”

Inspired by Poker Game and this week's gathering of international leaders. Image based on a photo by Elina Manninen, modified by Copilot.

Poker Game

Mary Ann was charming and funny, but she lacked a “stop” button. Take the infamous strip poker game at the back of the school bus where the six graders sat. Among a crowd of boys teetering on puberty, Mary Ann, past teetering, made the most of that 30-minute ride. When her opponent lost a round, she took off one of her many rings, which she wore just for the occasion. When Mary Ann lost, she went right for her shirt, and then her jeans. Her eyes were ablaze, chasing the attention, looking for the self-worth, she could not find elsewhere.

Inspired by Jordy. Photo by Stephen Rees.

Jordy

Jordan was his name. Jordy for short. He had it in for me and I never knew why. I think he literally hated me. It wasn’t any kind of secret crush as I was called a bone rack back then. Too skinny. Too awkward.  One afternoon, he raced by me on his bike and launched a rotten tomato at my head.

It caught the side of my face and exploded. I tried to pretend I wasn’t phased as tomato juice saturated my hair. But I felt shame and it stuck for years. I’ve always wondered what happened to that prick.

Inspired by Jerry Maybee. Photo by aquaArts studio.

Jerry Maybe

There’s a hole in my memory the size and shape of a ten-year-old boy. No idea who he was or what he looked like, just the memory of that time he blocked our toilet with a mess that would’ve kept me home from school, and the afternoon he convinced me to play by the tracks and how, sliding down the embankment, he somehow caught the branch of a prickle bush in his butt and made me look to see if he was bleeding. 

     Bad things happened to him . . . little things, sure, but just enough to warn me off. 

     Sorry, man.

Inspired by In search of Sheryl Hickory, 1961-1993. Illustration by the author, with a big leg up from Google Gemini.

In search of Sheryl Hickory, 1961-1993

Sheryl’s family was in a bad way, so Laurette looked after her. She fixed her hair, bought her school clothes and supplies and let us play together, until my bruises made it clear that her trauma was trickling down to me. I never went to her house, but I did have a nightmare that has stayed with me for fifty-eight years: I walked into the Hickory’s kitchen and saw her family seated at the table. As one, they turned and looked at me, except they had lizard heads. I woke myself up to escape these monsters. Sheryl wasn't so lucky.

Inspired by Sheryl, who was my friend for 620 days. Photo: “Underbelly” by Laurie.

The Gate in the Middle of Nowhere

Off-road, we encountered locked gates, and we had to hand our bikes across to another rider, then climb over ourselves. On one two-metre giant, I clambered onto the narrow top rail, which was strung with barbed wire, swung my legs across, perched gingerly, and jumped. There was a disconcerting tug and rrrrrrip as I let go. Yes. Those barbs; my shorts. For the rest of that day, I rode with a fist-sized tear on both buttocks. But cycling shorts are made of resilient fabric. That night, I sewed them up, salvaging them, and some dignity, for the ride next morning.

Inspired by Rosehill and Dale. Photo by Bob Miller, of a team-assisted, Flag-on-Iwo-Jima-like crossing of a much shorter fence.

No Brainer

I watch my neighbour cut their grass. They purposely leave the grass cuttings on the sidewalk.

It’s odd given it takes about 60 seconds to sweep it. We can’t be that lazy. Maybe we just can’t be bothered.

We’ve grown tired, impatient, indifferent. We prefer ChatGPT to human.

We are promised AI will make our lives easier. It does everything faster. We won’t have to think!

Endlessly chasing time against the certainty it’s escaping us.

We don’t have time. We only have now. And in that now, we’ll have no brain.

Inspired by Rosehill and Dale. Image by That Lawn Dude.

Rosehill and Dale

On the cycle to school, there’s a hill you will want to avoid. But don’t worry, I know a secret route that lets you attack the slope on calmer streets, in smaller steps, and at just the right angle to lessen the pain.

     Andrew discovered it; then shared it with me halfway through Grade 9. But he hasn’t lived here for decades, and I don’t think I’ve shown it to two (maybe three) other people . . . still—and I just looked it up—goddammit if Google hasn’t somehow figured out every single turn, and is now telling the whole fucking city!

Inspired by This One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Image by Gemini.

This One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest

She said she was a dancer. A spoken word poet and a character actor. She’s a local fixture, marked by a tall, beaky, avian strangeness that teeters on madness. The kind of conflicted late-model Boomer who bower-birds her bike basket with plastic flowers.

Chirp chirp chirp
. . . and then angry-peddles her way through a day care group.
“You little Pieces of Shit, stay out of my pollinator garden!”

Out comes her phone and the offending tiny turds are captured on video to be played over and over again, once she’s nesting and in the mood to ruffle her own feathers.

Inspired by Blurry Memories. Illustration by Tom Cooke.

Blurry Memories

In my prairie hometown, on a Saturday night, there was often not much going on, and we teenagers sometimes crashed wedding parties. These festivities usually had open bars stocked with rye distilled by an enterprising uncle of the bride. There were several unwritten rules: you made a cash donation to cover the freight; you could drink and dance, but not partake of the meal; and you couldn’t throw up more often than the groom. Such a bacchanal was where I mastered the polka at high speed, and ingested sufficient moonshine to suffer the first and worst hangover of my life.

Inspired by Building Community Through Dance. Image by Moyocoyaani.

Building Community Through Dance

The instructor puts on a reggae tune and counts us down: “Five, six, seven, eight . . .” All twenty beginner students take the first steps in unison—some confident, some not. Half way through, this middle-aged woman catches the beat, gets low with the rhythm. Hips sway. Feet ground on the good earth. Body twirls round and round. Arms and hands are raised to the darkening sky, her eyes bright and her face smiling. She lifts her head, letting her hair swing. The first droplets fall. But let it rain. Let people watch and stare and judge. She doesn’t care. She’s dancing.

Inspired by 7 Minutes. Image by Dmytro Kolin.

7 Minutes

It’s hard to find good humans these days. I found one a week ago. She asked for directions to the UP platform. I walked her there and was about to turn away when she asked if we could ride the train together. I said yes. We sat, we conversed—not in an obligatory way but with genuine curiosity. We looked at each other, we listened. I walked her to the Via. She hugged me and I reciprocated. We didn’t exchange names, we didn’t have to. No, this is not a love story—just a story of humans without phones.

Inspired by The Oakville Pietà, Image by Frank van Hulst.

When I’m Sixty-Four

In a few days, I’ll be the same age my mother was when I gave her a copy of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but only because 27-year-old me found it amusing that Side 2 offered up the perfect age-appropriate birthday song. 

Turns out, on its release, John Lennon was 26½. Paul McCartney would turn 25 in a few weeks. Ringo would be 27 in a month or so. And George had only just celebrated his 24th.

And yet those four cheeky pups had the gall to think that they’d have something to tell me today about growing old.

Inspired by To the Bitter End. Photos by Michael Cooper.

The Oakville Pietà

Last Thursday, Cate and I did a suburban Value Village run. Enroute, we talked about our children. Seasoned thrifters, we arrive then separate. I head over to men’s suiting where a mother and son are shopping. He’s more young man than boy, and dark like Dan. His mother, further up the rack, wore a hijab. A hunt for a graduation suit. I culled my way to the lady.

“Mama?” Kind, sweet, slightly anxious. A voice like my son. She and I turned towards him at the same time. Twin Pavlovian responses. And right there, I cried for a thousand mothers.

Inspired by Gaza, Kyiv, San’an, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Los Angeles. 

Vintage find from LimArtSculpture.

To the Bitter End

Some years ago, I watched one of those human-interest stories with which (after doling on the day’s many disasters) they close newscasts. It was about an old man who’d run a weekly marathon for twenty years. It was inspiring—until the final scene, where he was shown setting off on a practice run before his next event. He looked like hell. Arthritic, tentative, obviously in pain: all that impact, all that wear-and-tear on his joints and back. Life takes its toll.

     Sometimes I think of him, especially when (like today) someone asks me, “Are you limping?” My answer: “Not consciously.” 

Inspired by Frog in Pot. Image from a video by Aquila Chrysaetos.

Frog in Pot

Like a frog unaware it’s boiling to death because the water is heated incrementally, most days I’m only vaguely aware of my body’s slow disintegration. Except when I woke up last Thursday with excruciating knee pain. People asked: “what happened?” Beats me. I don’t remember doing anything out of the ordinary. I was just living. Medical tests will tell me if it’s something mendable like a meniscus tear, or a new norm like arthritis—a level of background pain I’ll get used to and then live in denial about. Nothing to see here, just a frog boiling in a pot.

Inspired by One Foot In and Man Door Hand Hook Car Door. Image by Shutterstock AI.

One Foot In

I spent the winter working with a bunch of old men on either side of 80, pounding in election signs and pulling them up—hard manual work, especially in the cold. They’ve had heart scares and cancer. One once almost died from a stomach bleed—twice!

And yet they ran circles round me, the whinging 63½-year-old who in just the last week, lost a filling in my back tooth, burned my arm on the oven rack, and banged up my foot so badly it couldn’t have hurt more had I stubbed my poor pinky toe on my very own grave.

Inspired by Man Door Hand Hook Car Door. Image by the Meta AI.

Man Door Hand Hook Car Door

I look in the mirror and see my mother. Well, I see her hands. Boney, blue veined and shadow-puppeting Groucho Marx with a tube of red lipstick held between two stiff fingers and an opposable thumb. Two broken rings and a wonkey index tell tales of a childhood knuckle-cracking habit, leash training Huskies, and that time I shut my hand in Skiz’s car door. They’re certainly not pretty and are my version of the portrait in the attic. I hear that cosmetic surgeons can take fat out of your ass and inject it into the tops of your hands. High-five.

Inspired by Tuesday’s Manicure. Knit Night photo by Laurie.

When Winning is Everything (Econ 100 Concluded)

Assume one country is better at producing a particular “good” than others because of its “factor endowments,” or its use of technology. In such a world, all countries would benefit if they produced what they produce best, and traded for goods that others are better at making. The theory of “comparative advantage” holds that the “gains from trade” make all nations better off—that fair trade is win-win. Recently, another scheme has emerged, whereby some countries think others should be their “bitches.” This beggar-thy-neighbour, win/lose approach is not supported by economic theory—but it’s not really about economics, is it? 

Last of a 3-part drabble degree program in economics that started with Economics 100 and continued with Inequality. Graduates may collect their diploma by submitting 1 Bitcoin to the Exquisite Corpse Grift Endowment Fund. Graph by Cmglee; AI image uncredited on Substack.

Maddie

Here you are my sweet girl,

In my arms, having taken your last breath.

Eighteen years you were by my side. 

A young mama whose babies were taken from you. 

I took you home as my baby.

You became my best friend, my silent advisor.

The stillness in my racing mind.

The accepting observer when I fumbled.

I caress you now,

I don’t want to let you go.

I slide to the floor with you in my arms,

And cry your name.

I gently wrap you for your crossing,

As must be done.

The pain takes hold, 

So pure, 

So necessary. 

Inspired by Lessons From My Dog. Image by 俊后生.

Muse

I finally caught my muse–in her office, downtown. Quite lucky, really, because I hadn’t made an appointment, and she doesn’t do Zoom.

Still, I had to wait for her to get off the phone (because she is always on the phone) dispensing what she has taken to calling customer support and what—with the rise of AI—is apparently all that most writers are needing these days.

     Not me.

     “I miss your little stories in my inbox each morning,” she said. “They'd make my day just a little less dim.”

     “I’ve been having some trouble getting started,” I said.

Inspired by my customary procrastination. Image by Meta’s AI.

Lessons from my Dog

Nim died on Wednesday, and like every good queen she left a legacy. So much magic fell our way because of her: Friendships, music, more puppies. Early on she taught us things like the importance of communication, exercise, volunteering our precious time. As she aged, our people/dog circle got tighter, then eventually smaller as she lost her own crew. First Siko, then Jude, then Lucy. Even in her sixteenth year she gave us teachings and the gifts of intuition and patience and ultimately compassion. She showed me that grief is idiosyncratic. With Siko it was visceral. With Nim it’s existential.

Inspired by: Nimoosh, 2009-2025. Photo by YJB Images.

Economics 100: Inequality

Today’s hundred-word seminar is about how to create income inequality. First, cut taxes, and make sure the rich get 90% of the benefit. Season with gaslight: tell the Base it’ll eventually trickle down to them; and besides, tariffs will replace taxes, and it’s foreigners who pay tariffs, so we don’t even need taxes. Next, demolish the government. DOGE it down. Cut meddlesome bureaucrats, scientists, programs. Cut education funding and delete all statistics. (You don’t want people analyzing what’s happening for themselves.) Finally, let oligarchs take over the government functions you’ve cut, and let them charge your citizen-suckers for them. $QED$.

Inspired by Economics 100, the first installment of my 3-part drabble degree program, and by corruption and grifters everywhere. The trilogy concludes with Winning is Everything. Image by Stationjack.

Acid Reflux and a Cracked Tooth

“Ah, yes, bottom left molar. We’ll freeze the area, then we’ll take an x-ray.” She wasn’t sure whether her dentist’s soft-spoken running commentary was meant for her or him, but she found it soothing. She had been afraid with her mouth stuck open wide that she’d choke on the stomach acid in her throat. But her reflux had subsided under his calm voice. Next time at dinner when tensions flare and she tastes acid, she’ll remember that voice, and perhaps she won’t bite down so hard and crack a bit of tooth off and almost choke on the ragged shard.

Inspired by Here I Go Again and a recent trip to the dentist (though the “tensions” at the dinner table are entirely fictitious). Image by Shutterstock.

Here I Go Again

Paul was her first real boyfriend. Desperate to be in love, he happened to come along at the right place and time, a drunken house-party. They were complete opposites. He was a rocker and she a preppy. She slowly acclimatized and even started to like hanging out in the McDonald’s parking lot blaring Whitesnake from the Camaro. She retired Ralph Lauren for a white leather fringe jacket. She had hoped he was an artist in-the-making but when on her birthday, he wrote her a card that read “Happy Birthday Angle” her spelling elitism got the better of her and it ended.

Inspired by Doxymoron. Illustration by Roberto Atzeni.

From a Letter to Ray in Japan

The last time you wrote, you were about to move into your own place, and you asked me for any tips I might have about bachelorhood. I have none. But I would be interested in hearing about anything you’ve discovered. If you have nothing particularly interesting to share, then tell me something about Japan, since my knowledge is essentially limited to what I’ve learned from Ian Fleming’s books and Saturday morning cartoons.
     I also read somewhere that the Japanese find pubic hair particularly offensive, so I shan’t enclose any with this letter in case it is opened by the authorities.

Inspired by Doxymoron. Excerpted from a letter dated August 24, 1986. Image by the author with assistance from Google Translate, Image Creator, and a font by Norio Kanisawa.

Doxymoron

Shit that I was, I read his love poem to my girlfriends. His suffering filled an entire sheet of lined note paper that he’d ripped from a three-ringed binder. Except for the odd school-neutered valentine, no one had ever written me anything romantic, and really, unless you counted that time in grade four when I made Jim Moran cry, I’d never been considered a dangerous female, worthy of 26 lines of angsty heartbreak. So I thought the work rewarmed and performative and treated it accordingly. In the fullness of time, I learned that he became a writer. A poet, even.

Inspired by Letters from my Mom’s Boyfriends. Image from Pinterest, with additions.