There was no way you could have a pair of Nikes and get clowned.

I just remember the room dense with familiar sound, the melancholy howl of the perfectly in-tune saxophones, the electric brilliance of trumpets, a drummer with eight arms; my mother looking over at me, expectantly, as if to say, “This is what you wanted, right? This is making you happy?”

My wife and kids and I are driving around in New Orleans, not too far from where I spent the first... more

By the time the keys were in my eager teenaged hand, this car had been through some shit. Even ignoring the holes burned into the driver’s-side door, the missing half of the left side mirror, and the warped, discolored metal down the rest of the vehicle, the car was 13 years old already, and it looked it.

My first boyfriend collected knives. He was the kind of boy who listened to Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne, who liked to draw superheroes... more

I don’t remember when portable CD players came out, but I know the one my aunt got me for Christmas was the first to arrive... more

That first year of having her, I would drive by myself, just to feel that relief of no anxiety. I... more

The dog ran alongside me for about twenty yards, then I hit it. Or maybe it hit me. I still don’t know. I felt sick.

Tom Cruise is one of life’s winners. He felt the need, the need for speed, and singlehandedly saved America from those Soviet planes, or something—honestly you never understood what was going on in the second half of Top Gun. In A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson told Tom Cruise he couldn’t handle the truth, but Jack Nicholson was quite wrong.

I wandered around Sam Goody, more likely keeping track of my ABCs than taking inventory of the... more

It was my senior year of high school, either late 1998 or early 1999. Everyone in my middle-class suburb used landlines. I flipped the phone open and closed, removed the battery, pulled out the antenna then pushed it back in.

We’ve taken our son, my wife and I, to get his first haircut. He is nearly two, and once I place him in the seat they’ve... more

In 1994, I subscribe to a magazine for wholesome Christian tweens, recommended by the Amy Grant fan. My mom approves; unlike the ones I sneak into our grocery cart, its cover never hints at sex.

I was halfway to the Drew Barrymore/Gwen Stefani hybrid image of my dreams; a few more years, I thought, and I’ll work at the Coffee Beanery at the mall.

I was aware, somehow, that people tended to get intense feelings about the bands they loved and that music had Mystery, capital M. But my family was not intense. We were American cheese on Wonder Bread.

I was looking forward to ruining my chances of being able to run or march anywhere.