Once upon a time, the only people who wrote about their lives and called it “memoir” were celebrities and US presidents. Other writers, when writing about their own lives and experiences, called it “fiction”. A person who wanted to write a memoir about themselves, and wasn’t already famous, was considered a narcissist and a fool. … Continue reading personal writing and the internet
A post not about my childhood
Today it’s spring. There are little flowers everywhere, suddenly. The light is less hazy and stays for longer, the rain is warmer. I leave the window open when I sleep and I can hear birds in the morning, wind chimes, children shouting. Neighbors running their car engines. I go on long walks with my dog, … Continue reading A post not about my childhood
ramen
There are so many ways to eat ramen. Ramen wet, ramen dry. Ramen that got stepped on, straight from the package, crumbled up. Ramen in a bowl with hot tap water. Put another bowl on top, if you have one. Let it sit for three minutes, if you can stand to wait. Ramen quickly, … Continue reading ramen
snow cave
I’m nine years old and our apartment is filled with smoke. Yellow, heavy, cloying smoke, the cumulative exhaust of thousands and thousands of cigarettes. It’s been a long winter- cold, dark, blustery, trees popping in the night-time, bitter stars, snow piled up against the window panes. The electric wall registers are cranked to full-blast and … Continue reading snow cave
fish soup
My mother rarely ate anything other than cigarettes, mountain dew and strong black tea. Occasionally, when she was feeling generous, she would buy a bag of fritos and a tub of cottage cheese and we would eat them together, sitting cross-legged on the carpet. Fritos and cottage cheese were a combination that she had brought … Continue reading fish soup
Light box
As an adult, I look back and I see the paranoid schizophrenic woman who raised me, and I see the woman who raised me- and it is impossible, sometimes, to separate the two, to know what would have been different if this woman hadn’t been so paranoid, if she hadn’t been hallucinating, and what would … Continue reading Light box
OCD
Barbara is out of cigarettes again. It’s wintertime, and she can’t remember a time when it was anything other than wintertime. She takes her long, puffy pink coat with the toggle buttons from the ladder-backed kitchen chair where it lives and buttons it up over her tall, narrow frame. She puts her long fingers in … Continue reading OCD
The Virgin Mary
Imagine you’re my mother. Imagine you’re the virgin Mary. The virgin Mary has been reincarnated into this tall, thin body, this black hair and green eyes. She’s been reincarnated into a woman who chain smokes capris and drinks mountain dew out of plastic gas station cups. My mother as the virgin Mary. It’s no treat, … Continue reading The Virgin Mary
Where darkness lives
I woke up this morning thinking about my mother. I invoked her, yesterday, by talking about her, and when I woke up this morning she was there, in the room. Her spirit, her energy. My mother exists. It’s hard to believe that something still exists when you do not see it with your own eyes. … Continue reading Where darkness lives
light bulbs, chihuahuas, and writing about myself
My new apartment is two square rooms, a yellow kitchen counter, and the hum of the fridge. It is the click-click of the baseboard heaters and the cold blue light of the stark-white walls. I have not hung artwork yet. I just moved yesterday from a one-room cottage with a woodstove to this land of … Continue reading light bulbs, chihuahuas, and writing about myself
CARROT QUINN 
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