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.

Economics 100

Being an economist is like being an undertaker or proctologist—watch how people avoid you at parties. No one wants to join a spirited discussion about Pareto optimality or the marginal propensity to consume. Father Guido Sarducci once proposed a “Five-Minute University," where students would learn everything they’d remember five years after graduating from a real university. His economics curriculum consisted of three words: Supply and Demand. Really, though, people need more than that to understand economics. I propose a lengthier, in-depth, hundred-word crash course for the MAGA base—crash being the operative word. Imma try with my next post.

Inspired by deluded applications of the dismal science. Part 2 of the program, focused on inequality, is here. Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Letters from my Mom’s Boyfriends

I read her love letters from pathetic Arthur asking her about wardrobe advice, not understanding he would always be too embarrassingly unhip for Mom no matter how impressive his single-engine Cessna. I read the short, Franglais letters from Denis when he took that construction job in Algeria—erotic longing seeping through the thin airmail paper. I saw these men only as temporary extensions of Mom. They came and went as others had and were therefore not worth me getting to know. But they were important to Mom and through their words on these pages I glimpse her restless, lonely soul.

Inspired by . . . nothing, I just wanted to change the topic. Image by LambArtist.

Mad Bra!

Maddy worked in Tech Support, but if you were new, and she was in a cheeky mood, she might’ve introduced herself as Mad Bra—her nerdy joke on the way addressing in R-Mail worked, where you could type just a few letters to get to the person you wanted.

     So, Mad Bra gave you Madeline Bradley.

     Rub Sin was Ruby Sinclair. Dam Fog, Damien Fogerty.

     And maybe it’s commonplace now, but back then it seemed nothing short of miraculous, especially if you worked a lot with Glad Jim, better known to her family and friends as Gladys Amalia Jiménez Cárdenas.

Inspired a bit by Instructions, but mostly by a long week of data entry, where I got to dust off this sweet little trick that I learned in the ’90s. Illustration by ChatGPT.

Birding in the Kalahari

We drove along a sandy track, skidding occasionally, but mostly riding the spoor like a ball in a bowling lane gutter. Rounding a curve, we startled a flock of pheasants. As Molefe swerved through them, they scattered, and one bounced off the grill.

     Molefe braked. We both looked back. The bird fluttered weakly on the ground. Molefe ran to it, lifting it to cradle in his arms. I was moved, and reached out to touch it gently—just as he snapped its neck and tossed it in the back of the truck. That night, he roasted it over our fire.

True story, inspired by Chickadees in the Park. Photo by Michael Hall.

Chickadees in the Park

Full of rage, she goes to the park to walk it off and formulate her rebuttal, but writes this instead:

Buzz of beating wings,
chitter, chatter, chick-a-dee-dee-dee
Nattering neighbours gossip on wooden porches
calling across the upper storeys of the trees

Past the leafy blinds,
here a flap; there a flutter — all in a flurry
black-kerchiefed matrons bob and weave.
Pump bodies under feathered aprons scurry.

Anticipation and outstretched arms —
Do not move. Do not breathe. Be calm, be calm.
Imprint of the dancer's quick steps, her ballerina breaths,
prick of her beak as she picks seed from your palm.

Inspired by 6 AM. Photo by Jaclyn Vernace.

6 AM

Happy is the serenity of the early morning walk in the park

Still dark

The quiet lays over life like a weighted blanket

The people speak softly

The dogs prance lightly 

The robins commence their rehearse for the dawn concerto 

The low lying paths

Damp and foggy

Feel intriguing and mysterious 

And get the heart beating

The top of the trail then unveils the breaking sky

Pink and gold

Streaking through the gray clouds 

The dead brown brush begins to shimmer in it’s light 

Truly, it is a spectacular place 

A new beholding every day

There to experience 

I am grateful 

Inspired by The Après Life. Image by Nathanael Kiefer.

Quarter-Pound Foolish

The subway home from high school would drop me off on the southside of Bloor, out the rear entrance, and across the parking lot to the Uptown Nut House, which although it was much better known for its fresh-roasted cashews, was my go-to for loose candy.

Thirty-five cents for a quarter pound of jubes, forty-five for the licorice babies, or—if I was feeling particularly fancy—a whole dollar’s worth of their wine gums. Sure, it was bad for me, but what did I care? I certainly needed the calories, and my teeth were still on my mother’s dental plan.

Inspired by Blue Hawaii. Photo by the Great Lakes Refill Co.

Blue Hawaii, crayon on paper towel, by Laurie Anne (1967)

I was five and Jonesing for candy. Only Drouillard Road and childhood penury stood between me and Sweet Tarts. I had to sell my art. Still comfortably in my Desert Island phase, I put crayon to paper towel and let the Muse overtake. Hula Girl, Sun, Palm Tree. I schlepped door-to-door, but such was neighbourhood apathy for design that I soon worried if I’d ever make it to Charron’s. Finally, Mrs. Drazic let me in and listened to my creative vision. Unmoved by Klee-like innocence and economy of line, she gave me a glass of milk and sent me packing. Inspired by The Happy Place. Photo of Charron’s grocery store—the Holy Grail of penny candies—posted by Diane Vella.

The Happy Place

I’m not sure why, because it wasn’t part of my upbringing, but art makes me happy. It doesn’t happen at first sight. For my first half hour inside a gallery, I’m restless, my thoughts frenetic like the street outside. Slowly though, the atmosphere tranquilizes me to worldly distractions: yes, it soothes my savage breast. Suddenly I see on the wall before me what my impatience missed, a creation that teases and winks; challenges or defies norms; or simply pleases. Mountains, forests, coasts, they work for me too, but a gallery prods me to wonder about human potential; and to hope.

Inspired by The Après Life. Image by Annie Fairfax.

The Après Life

March reminds me of spring skiing—though I could skip the slopes altogether. I’ve never graduated from the bunny runs and usually spend the whole time worrying about how to exit the chair lift without falling. So maybe it’s spring snowshoeing.

Anyway, what’s important is the “après” part. Imagine: skis or snowshoes off, sighing into a Muskoka chair. On its wide arm rest, a hot toddy. Unbuttoned parka. Tuque off. Fingers running through sweaty hair. Body content after a day spent outdoors. Limbs pleasantly tired. Now close your eyes, lift your face to the sun and disappear into the moment.

Inspired by the arrival of March. Image by Dinga.