Hi. My name’s John. Bronze chip day ( Read more... )

This story intersects with this one; they also stand alone.
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Marlene watches from the wall
Her mocking smile says it all
As she records the rise and fall
Of every soldier passing

But the only soldier now is me
I’m fighting things I cannot see
I think it’s called my destiny
That I am changing

-Suzanne Vega

It ( Read more... )

This story intersects with this one; they also stand alone.
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On the way to work, he passed a white van, the sides of which had been painted gold with spray paint. On the driver’s side door, in the same gold paint, someone had carefully written “Arles”. The letters were actually what he had noticed ( Read more... )

There’s a village. With a bakery. A good bakery. Best bread around, rye, wheat, raisin, semolina, and a shelf of day-old at the back, on sale. There’s a hundred people in the village and every morning eighty-two of them line up to buy bread. The ones who saved money from their paychecks, or from their mother’s housekeeping money, or inherited ( Read more... )

This may also be heard as a voice post.
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I like being a temp. Being temporary. I like working when I want and quitting when I want. I like dressing up. I like meeting people with important jobs. I like money.

I told the agency I never wanted to be anywhere longer than a week. If you’re not there ( Read more... )

This story is also available as a voice post.
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Daddy was real particular about having the yard raked. He come home at the end of the day, yard had to be raked, no footprints, no holes, no castles, no puddles, just raked.

So me and Jonathan are playing Barbies, over by the spigot where there’s ( Read more... )

Hellllooooooo Mummies, Mommies, Mamas and Mums! This week, the Practical Mommy is writing from the Hamptons, where a Special Mommy Friend has asked us to stay and share a nanny!

As you may well guess, this allows the Practical Mommy to reassign time from Refereeing and Bathing to the more subtle art of Reflection, and from this lovely, rather Zen ( Read more... )