If you’ve ever been asked to place your anxiety on a litmus test of 1-10 and have no idea what a 10 would constitute, then you know how jarring and disconnected this question could be. I thought about running away from the office, I thought about knocking over one of her plants 

In the staff meeting she thought about enemas.  

In nearly every used book—bought, borrowed, or salvaged—I’ve found them. 

I was drunk and coked up and thought it’d be a good idea to cut through some strange wooded area. Then I was completely underwater. 

Our friend Stacy Kranitz, who is a (super talented) photographer, invited Scott and me to go to Skatopia’s 20th Anniversary Bowl Bash in June. Of course, we said yes. Here is

We were sitting on the shores of the Atlantic, waiting for the wind to change and the black flies to get blown back out to sea when the plane went down.

For all the hours we’ve spent with strangers, all the conversations and shared stories, we ask no one’s name—until now. 

There are five categories for hurricanes; most of the buildings here were built to withstand categories one and two.

No one is going anywhere, he says. You will sleep here tonight.

Two teenagers are living in my house this summer, and neither has read The Catcher in the Rye. They’ve taken over the basement, binge-watching shows on Netflix and referring to Instagram as

“Ah, so you’ve had an ordinary life,” she said.

Standing next to the homie Marge on the vast lawn full of Lana fanatics in flower crowns and Pepsi-Cola tee shirts I did not feel at home

In which we listen to ourselves being recounted in the mouth of the boyfriend 

The people in my workshop suggested the stories were detailing co-dependency. From my position of fiction writer I laughed and nodded in agreement so as not to appear too sentimental towards the material. I thought of my classmates as boring and responsible and generic, and reasoned that they couldn’t understand the characters’ interactions because they were only limitedly tolerant of anything eccentric—

On our way to Denver, Peter got us into an accident after we were diverted from the interstate by a roadblock for a bad accident. After defeating Boris Spassky in Reykjavik for the World Chess

Bro Country is not all that different from dudes in general and real life. I've dated enough white dudes and went to college in Kentucky and I've been to, like, twenty-five Dave Matthews Band concerts, so, trust me, I know this stuff.

The first month after my ex-girlfriend and I broke up I spent a lot of time driving aimlessly and sitting alone in my apartment listening to music and feeling sorry for myself. 

I do not remember this, cannot call up the image. 

We are launching a new project, HOBART HANDBOOKS, the first project of which is our Handbook on Baseball, collecting some of our favorite pieces from our last thirteen years of online baseball

In 2011, while addicted to heroin, I briefly delivered pizza for Zeppe's, a chain restaurant in rural Northeast Ohio. 

The story goes that Mario is Luigi’s brother. Nearly all we know about him is that he is a brother.

Sometimes we appreciate things a lot later in life than we should.

The tourists stand on the hostel balcony, shirtless, sun on their golden skin and hair or maybe their skin is the sun.

Yesterday my mom called me up and asked me to buy her cigarettes. I told her no and hung up. 

By dread I’m inspired, by fear I’m amused. The phrase was cursived on a cocktail napkin and folded into my handshake by a steel-haired young woman two weeks before my 20th birthday.