The drought has been going on for so long that there's a separate number to call for grass fires. You can't call 911 anymore, so you dial 411 and instead of asking for an address or a phone number,

The men with the chainsaws scrambled in the trees. The boy sat across the street, his bike by his side. The earth shook with each dropped limb. A few leaves clung to the branches, the limbs’

Jed needed beer. It was late and we had driven by three closed liquor stores. I had a sore throat. I said we should just go to the Walgreens near his apartment.

“Really? You can’t buy

We figure the leaves will find a way back into the house, where they take more than their share of furniture. The smell of ruin and the lack of rain outside has not permeated the house yet. That

Mutiny is the last I remember.  being pitched over.  only to awaken here.   drowning in an Aeron chair.  typing my own ransom memo for the corporate pirates who pay me in somnambulistic days. 

I am a fifty foot and two inch panda monster. It’s time for my sacrifice. If it’s not there, then it’s time to rampage through the village. I live out in the woods, a deep ancient forest, trees

A waterslide in the middle of the ocean’s a big project. I mean, it’s a pretty enormous project. It was the board of trustees’ idea to situate the thing out in the Pacific Basin, where Canada curls

1. The Netherlands 0 – Argentina 16
July 18, 1978 World Cup Final

The Dutch side were hamstrung when they were informed just minutes before the game that a new equal rights ordinance passed

We were in the middle of an epidemic of extrasensitive hearing. We walked around with our ears swollen and red, or lay in bed trying not to hear. We only whispered anymore, an ear-shaking whisper,

Since Cape of Good Hope

Terry was here with the AIDS people, but I was just visiting. I didn’t know I needed a break until the phone calls from Terry began, calls about native African pussy and

In the old yard adjacent the high school sat a green-metal box that housed an emergency generator. At least we always said it did, though I’ve unlearned plenty since those days. Used to we’d hang

The beach is crowded and a handful of other vacationers see it: a flash of white just past the waves, then overturned quickly; a dark diamond shape, a splash as the stingray falls back to the

I bought secondhand hunting attire that I only wore around the house. You corrected me when I called our apartment a house. We howled until we were gender tired. You howled when you stubbed your

Riding through the desert I came across a cowboy in the narrow shade of a saguaro. He was doing stomach crunches. I crossed my arms over my saddlehorn and watched him for a few reps but ended up

The weirdest thing happened to me just now, which is weird in itself in that nothing weird ever happens to me. I, being on the surface at least, not weird.

Why should I lie? I've done nothing.

I was behind the mint green Toyota pickup on the way to work this morning, again. It didn’t matter if I was running late because Tommy flung his breakfast on my blouse, or if I was early because I

“The thing is,” he said, “now that I’ve stopped drinking, I don’t want to be a bore. At parties, you know.”

“You’re not boring, Grandpa,” I said. He didn’t go to parties, either.

“The thing

I met Billy Lombardo in the summer of 2007 on a sun drenched patch of grass under the Blue Ridge Mountains in Asheville, N.C. We had both just survived our first "Meet and Greet" at Warren Wilson

I did some fact-checking after the wedding. I bet you thought I never would, but I did. And you know what I found out? You were never an ace reliever in the Orioles' farm system, like I overheard

Pop loved two things, but I inherited his affection for one of those only. He read me bedtime stories during the off-season. The last one always came the night before he left for Spring Training.

I enjoy stealing. It's just as simple as that.
Jane's Addiction, "Been Caught Stealing"

Bear with me here: I don't know shit about baseball. I honestly don't think I could name a single

She woke up as excited as she had twenty years ago on a St. Patrick's Day morning in her childhood home, despite the fact that everything around her was unfamiliar, despite the fact that her hotel

She is not a warthog in the zoo. She travels with a whip and rope through space and time. She is not a girl but feels like one. She understands the principles of Schrödinger and Heisenberg,

My wife says I'm too old for rollercoasters. Maybe she's right. I'm twenty-five, I'm balding, and I have a weak beard. But I still want to go to Libertyland.

"You'll buy a funnel cake,"