I wake one morning aware that I had a weird dream, but unable to recall what it was. I don’t bother trying to scour my brain for it because I am exhausted and need to get ready for work. But as I stand in the shower sudsing my belly, it all comes rushing back. I had impregnated my […]
joeyharpel
The Literary Young Adult Box – Beth Revis Edition
I’ve done a bad thing. After going on about trying to cut back on books, I subscribed (again) to a curated package from Quarterly. Last year I subscribed to Book Riot’s Literary Box. I unsubscribed because I wasn’t always happy with what I received. The books were either meh (of what I’ve read, anyway) or I never really […]
July In Review
I’m trying to enjoy my last few days before I head out on Sunday to Orlando, where I will, with certainty, die of heat frustration. I do not do well in warm temperatures, especially when it’s humid. I have an internal thermometer and when it gets too high, well, things get messy. I didn’t get as […]
Bystander Effect
I pay my mechanic in beer and food. He’s my uncle, so I can do that. I laugh in the face of those who pay abhorrent amounts of money just to keep their cars running. This past Saturday, my uncle worked on my Jeep. He replaced the brakes and did an oil change. Pretty routine […]
Golems, Victorian Top Gear, and Drag Queens
In my dream, I’m climbing a mountain range with my family. We stop hiking to watch a team of wild horses gallop down the mountainside straight toward us. I panic, but my mother scolds me because this is part of a show I am suddenly partaking in. We duck down and allow the stampede of blindfolded horses to […]
June In Review
I considered doing Ramadan this year along with my Muslim coworkers in order to lose some weight, but then I remembered how much my body relies on food and water to live and said, eff that. Instead, I took a sadistic sort of pleasure drinking and eating in front of them. On the other hand, I think […]
Mommies and Mummies
In my dream, I was at Red Balloon Bookshop for an authors’ signing, similar to the one I attended with Alison Goodman, Alwyn Hamilton, Rachel Hawkins, Sabaa Tahir, April Genevieve Tucholke, and Karen Bao. It was rather enjoyable until my mom was invited up on the stage (Pfft, as if she’d deign to go to a book […]
Why I Should’ve Never Told People I Write
It took me many years to be able to admit I’m a writer. I used to think that since I wasn’t published, it meant I wasn’t one. I was just someone who wrote. And not very well at that. Then I took my first college creative writing class and I realized, yes, I am a writer. Even […]
That Homicidal Feeling
A wise man by the name of Dane Cook once said, “There are certain sounds in this world, that when you hear them, it makes you want to punch a baby…. It makes you want to PUNCH a BABY.” Like me, I’m sure Cook suffers from misophonia, which is a hatred of very specific sounds. […]
In Which I Dream of Humming Birds
What does it mean when you dream of incestuous, necrophilic humming birds? It means you’ve left the window open again and the nest of hatchlings outside are making an ungodly racket. Which begs the question, do humming birds actually chirp? I’ve never heard one. In my dream, I was back in high school again, searching desperately for a toilet, which, […]