On Writing

You Can Have It All

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Dear Internet,

Ah. You know what? Perhaps I shouldn’t have published that post, four years ago. If I were going to insist upon publishing that post four years ago, however, there were a few, very reasonable options you gave me. And there’s no use feigning naiveté, I was aware of all of them. I could have kept it to first names, for example. I could have used an alias. I could have deleted all of my archives, when I switched over to a new address last January.

Internet, occasionally I am a lazy and careless woman.

Facebook to me
show details 11:51 PM (9 hours ago)

Robin added you as a friend on Facebook. We need to confirm that you know Robin in order for you to be friends on Facebook.

Robin says, “A girl that I have gone on a single date with sent me a link to your blog about me dating 4 years back. Kinda freaky, but I’m not offended.”.

To confirm this friend request, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?reqs.php

Internet, I perhaps unwisely publish this correspondence for one reason: oh, it’s on.

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Uncategorized

Little Blinking Red Lights

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Some fish like the dark.

I’d been to the Boston Aquarium multiple times and had never seen that sign. It hovered over a set of thick black velvet curtains near the main doors, like an entrance to some haunted magicians’ supply store. Nearby, the chaos of aquatic gifts and Dippin Dots churned together with other important missions — men and women running around in PHOTOGRAPHY STAFF blazers, ticket-givers and ticket-rippers. Children screamed. Strollers collapsed and folded. A man in a wetsuit and headpiece microphone entered neon water and announced the penguins’ names.

“No, no,” he explained with forced patience, his tired voice skipping across imitation boulders and settling into a tank of crustaceans at our left. “That one’s Denzel. What did I say about the tags?”

“Some fish like the dark,” I read to my mother. “Deep sea fish. No flash photography. Interested?”

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Radio

Reflections From a Last Day

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They were very sweet. At my going-away party on Tuesday (“what is that,” a friend asked, “Boone’s Farm Black?”), Jake snapped this photo with his phone. There were roses. Roses! And marble cake.

Today was my official last day. My laptop was cleared, my last podcast put up with no fanfare. I walked the mile home, set my purse down, and then opened my computer to see this picture. And I was suddenly overcome with horror.

“My . . . God,” I realized. “This is the kind of picture that is taken before it all went wrong.”

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Costa Rica, Poetry

The Dividing Line

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I would like very much to go
snorkeling with you —

Our pale, East Coast bodies floating like foam
in a cobalt salty sea

Where, fluttering alongside schools of flatfish,
darling you and I would speak

A new language

of air bubbles and gestures, pirouettes and
pipe-delayed gasps

as electric eels writhe below.

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