- / +

  • For the talent show, Bryant had put together all his legos into a giant slab. He hadn't done it right and it broke. I knew I was the only one who could fix it. I yelled to my mom to hand me a 4x2 but she wouldn't help. A semi truck backed up to unload more legos and the slab kept breaking apart in my hands and I was crying uncontrollably, I cried more when I realized my puffy eyes would keep me offstage as well as Bryant, who'd disappeared. I wanted to find him so I could finally kiss him.

  • The woman in charge was furious that her cards had been printed out with her name spelled wrong. She set me to work writing her name on folded paper napkins; they'd have to do. I spelled it wrong too but figured it didn't matter. She lay back in the hot tub and Kim came in to tell her what her son had been doing. She sat up and screamed at her. Ian wouldn't do that! He would not! I was her for a minute, and understood why she was angry.

  • Dad had been talking about putting in a tub for as long as I could remember; I'd believe it when I sat in it. He was digging the hole, though, that was something. He left it half-finished and I scooped out a few handfuls of wet dirt. Bugs erupted out, centipedes, worms, all the long squiggly kind of bugs. They were growing and multiplying and I knew they were headed for the outhouse to eat the poop and grow stronger. I knew they would weaken the ground and open the poop reservoir to the air and I knew we were in for a big stink. The biggest centipede came for me. It was flat and its segments shimmied as it ran - it was quick as a cat. I ran and jumped and finally found a can of bug spray and sprayed it till it was white all over and it still would not stop. Then it was Jamcracker and I still kept spraying it and I was not sorry.

  • Gone back to school and had hundreds of new writing credits to my name. Where had I gotten the time? New apartment with hardwood floors and a couch with many pillows.

  • Me and the cast of Friends were hanging out in New York cause that's what we do. Ross was sad and somber so we left him in the park. The rest of us went home on streets lifted from Fort Valley, Joey driving the big yellow truck. How are we fitting through the street in this thing? I wondered, but knew better than to think too hard about it. Monica wouldn't shut up and Joey sang loud, some dumb song that had been on the radio a few years ago, the guy forgetting the name of a woman he'd just slept with. At first that made me nervous but he remembered who it was by the end of the song and I joined in on the chorus and felt better.

  • At the shipyard I saw the men haul up the dolphin sign, which meant that conditions were right for them to be out and playing. I lay down on the warm ground and looked at the sign. Flat and calm blue paint. Tiny dolphins frozen mid-leap. I wanted to make myself calm and flat and blue. As I watched, the dolphins unfroze. When I looked away from the sign it disappeared and I was neck deep in the ocean and there were children and dolphins all around me. It was hard to tell which was slipping past me, flashing silver underwater.