Pieces

Essays, Etc.:

“Bridges and Tunnels” The Kenyon Review, Spring 2012
Deep into hypnotherapy, I lift my right forefinger, signaling to Rachel, the practitioner, that I want to speak. “Where are you?” she asks. “It’s the train table in our basement,” I say. “It’s huge. Two levels of electric trains.”

“The Lost Object” Connotation Press, March 2012
Often, late at night, I flip through reruns of medical shows: mysterious diseases, tragic diagnoses, and so-called miracles. Once I saw an episode about a girl born without arms.

“Blaze of Gloria” Hippocampus Magazine, December 2011
“A rotting log, or snag, provides food and shelter for many animals and plants,” reads Colin, deliberately.

“The Rabbit Hole” Hippocampus Magazine, May 2011
“Tell me about your earliest memory,” says Rachel, co-founder of Manhattan’s Neuro-linguistic Programming Center, as we begin our first session of hypnotherapy.

“Married by a Monk” Tiny Lights Essay Contest Honorable Mention, 2010
Angkor Thom, once a majestic walled city enclosing nearly four square miles of the Cambodian jungle, is now a complex of stunning ruins. Lively markets and inexpensive resort hotels surround the site, so tourists (like me) crowd in close.

“Genetic Tribe of One” Anderbo, December 2010
I was feeling alone; I always do when autumn comes and the weather turns foul. Back when I was teaching elementary school, autumn brought long, talkative days and short, hard-slept nights. Now my only reason for leaving the apartment is to buy chicken and gin.

“Retail Therapy” Tiny Lights, November 2010
It’s 5:35 pm and I’m in Nine West. No matter where you are in the city, or what size your feet, Nine West is there for you, staffed by women in chic black. They don’t push; they just wear the shoes well.

“Legs” Connotation Press, September 2010
A massage therapist once told me, “You eat too much junk food. It stays in your legs. They’re like mountains.” My legs are like mountains?

“Black, White, and Red” Hawaii Women’s Journal, August 2010
You know it’s a bad idea, but the school where you teach needs the cash.

“Shower Talk” Frontier Psychiatrist, August 2010
“Have you ever wanted to pick up a totally random hobby?” she asked. “Yeah,” he said. “Calligraphy.” She didn’t think it was random enough. She assumed he didn’t understand the word random, which means without aim. Without reason. “I mean something unique,” she said. “Something nobody’s ever done before.”

“Hole” Hawaii Women’s Journal, Spring 2010
Four years ago, my tooth had a cavity. It was a molar, number three on the chart. Everyone’s number three tooth is the biggest. Along with fourteen, nineteen, and thirty, number three makes up the gang of big, rugged, third-from-the-back teeth that does the grunt work. During the drilling, a root was struck and the pain began. Whenever pain begins, we become violent. Clip out hangnails. Burn off warts. Suck out tooth roots.

“Seven Blessings” Muse & Stone, Spring 2010
I. Hineini. Here I am. Breathe deeply. Sigh audibly.

“Spotlighting the Neighborhood” In The Fray, November 2009
A police officer wearing protective gear and holding an automatic machine gun stands in the middle of First Avenue.

“Life Slows to a Crawl” Tiny Lights, April 2009
One night, incredibly, I won.

“Where Lies, the Meaning” Canon Magazine, May 2008
I learned the key to job satisfaction at the Ponderosa Steakhouse. I bussed tables there. It was gross, but at the time it was cool because I made money and wore a uniform.

“Fred and Me and Fettuccini” Canon Magazine, March 2008
“Nice to see you,” said my buddy’s father. I nodded, smiled. “Do you have bags, son?” he asked my friend, who affirmed.  “Stay until 3:30. Don’t miss it.”  I stared in gracious silence at the man, the architect of the ruse, the reason why, for the third time, I was about to spend an afternoon pretending to be someone I am not.

“View Points” Canon Magazine, December 2007
I’m afraid of heights. It’s the sort of afraid feeling that has me sprawled face down on the carpet during particularly panicky evenings so as to avoid being suddenly, mysteriously, sucked out the window.

“Archives of a Man” Canon Magazine, May 2007
My father died the week my kindergarten class learned the letters “LMNOP,” how to write them in lower case and upper case, how to sing them in just two notes, how to slip the “U” card in at the end so that Mrs. Thurlow would say “LMNOP-U!” and make us all laugh. 

Scholarship, Education, and Reviews:

“In the Clear” Environmental Health Narratives (E. Mendenhall and A. Koon, Editors), University of New Mexico Press, July 2012
Stuffed walrus, seashell necklace, princess doll, eleven books, purple sheets, clothes, shoes, diary. Poppy looked at the pile containing all her belongings and sighed.

“Writing Gender” Hunger Mountain writers and writing blog, March 2012
I trained to be a teacher while on the job, working at a co-ed elementary school in Manhattan’s East Village. There, I learned the basics: engaging students, managing a classroom, and deciding what kids need to know. I felt the common newcomer’s idealism about the direct impact teachers have on students.

“The Inner Identity of Immersion Memoir” The Writer’s Chronicle, December 2011
A man is camping on a beach in Japan. It’s a stormy night. The ocean surges closer and closer to his tent but the man, having biked over two hundred miles from Kyoto to Tokyo, is too exhausted to move. 

“Shape Is the Thing” Hunger Mountain writers and writing blog, June 2011
My husband and I recently visited Montreal for our anniversary. While braving a rainstorm to check out Old Montreal’s offerings, we passed a jewelry studio, closed for the weekend. I stopped, not only because I usually stop for the unusual and the studio’s windows displayed eye-catching pieces, but also because I noticed something hanging over the door.

“The Price of Remaining Human” Hawaii Women’s Journal, November 2010
Two strangers meet on a mountain path. One dies, one lives. Decades later, they both return to finish the story.

“The Indian in the Classroom” In The Fray, March 2009
In the fall of 2002, I was teaching third grade at an independent, coeducational elementary and middle school in Manhattan. As October rolled by, I asked a student what he was going to be for Halloween. “I’m going as an Indian,” he said, excitedly. He seemed to be looking forward to the upcoming candy fest. But to me, his response was a flag — a big red flag with “teachable moment” written all over it.

“Straight from the Horses’ Mouths” (co-authored with Dr. Katie Cunningham) ATIS Bulletin, Summer 2006
In recent studies of education by the American media, boys have been singled out, particularly for their poor performance in reading and writing when compared to girls, and for their overall disinterest in school.