Gray freeways swoop and spiral above her, with blue sky sometimes peeking through. The roadway loops below her, with green grass and parking lots sometimes visible. She drives in arcs, down and around and up and around. Her rental car accelerates powerfully, smoothly, and smells of upholstery cleaner and stale cigarette smoke.

Wow. Thanks for having me. And sorry about the shorts. I didn’t realize the other readers would be dressed so nicely. And thank you, JoAnn, for that essay about your kid. Kids do say the darnedest things. Keep sending it out. Editors are bastards.

In the summer of 1972, after weeks of consuming only avocado fuzz and free coffee from a local Midas Muffler Shoppe, a gifted oracle named Arthur emerged from his tent to impart the following vision to his neighbor, a burgeoning young crooner with the voice of an incandescent castrati: “If you get caught between the moon and New York City, the best that you can do is fall in love.”

A substitute walked into our 6th grade math class. He was thin and old and wearing a black suit. A frayed cuff appeared from under his sleeve as he tapped out a name full of Ys and Zs on the board. In a measured voice, he read out the instructions from our teacher. “There is a work sheet,” he said. “You can complete for homework if you do not finish today.”

Bill was fired for killing too many flies in front of the customers. He folded his apron, black, with the coffee shop’s cutesy, punned name on the front, into a small square — to save face. Jimmy, the boss who was three years older than Bill and stupider, took the apron from his hand and shook it like something dirty, unfolding it. He followed Bill back inside the store, holding the black cloth and smirking.

Sex is a series of tubes. One tube going into another, that’s all it is when you get right down to it. The electrical grid, sewage system, subways, phone lines, hell, more than half the infrastructure of this thankless nation: tubes.

After living long and happy lives and doing no less than all of the interesting things we wanted to do, my husband and I had a baby. Because having long lives and doing interesting things had been profoundly exhausting, we came to the conclusion that we were too tired to make another decision ever again, so we did what many people in our situation do. We moved from our loft in San Francisco to a Progressive Suburb Bordered on One Side By A Large Metropolitan Area and on the Other by Farms That Grow Locally Sourced Produce. For brevity, I will refer to this as PSBOSBALMA, or Marin County.

Several thousand feet above, superheroes and secret agents were fighting with Norse gods aboard an invisible flying aircraft carrier, an epic battle for the fate of humanity, but for the 2,000 cruise ship passengers far below, it was just a gray thumbnail-sized smudge in the sky.

A glossy black car speeds quickly down Highway 24, southwest of Boston.  In the front passenger seat, a man dressed like Batman curses at a driver dressed like Robin.  Large pink letters painted across both sides of the car read, “Hanky’s Panky Entertainment Services” and below that, “Heros for Parties: 59 Bucks,” and then inred caps, “Boston’s Best in Balloons!” 

He's holding up a pad and pen on which he's written, “I miss you.” He's flying alongside the space shuttle, matching its seventeen thousand miles per hour as it orbits Earth like a singular, misplaced electron, his cape motionless in the void of space, a little adorable half-smile on his face.

For the Love of Ivy

(Poison Ivy Leaves a Note for Batman in the Wake of Another Apocalypse Attempt)

You can see, can’t you, the appeal of such a world – lush with growth,

Gamma Ray Exposure 

Actual Result:  Headache, shortness of breath, stiffness in joints, liver damage, loose stool, impotence. 

Comic Book Result:  increased size and strength, greenish hue to skin 

When the bookmobile lady drives down your street

consider her to be behind the controls of an invisible plane.

Sharpen your sight and shout Shazamm!