There are times when I'm caught up in everything and I have to say to myself, "Please feel good; please feel better; everything's okay; you're fine; things aren't falling apart; take a second; get back to a place where you realize that you don't actu...
For the longest time I was so sick I didn't have the strength or inclination to read, but looking at my books stacked up on the bedside table was comforting, like having old friends sitting in the room with me, friends who didn't require anything of ...
Because what my gradmother did with her fine coat (the loveliest thing she would ever own) is what all women of that generation (and before) did for their families and their husbands and their children. They cut up the finest and proudest parts of th...
Will sat where he was, gazing at the silver bowl in front of him; a white rose was floating in it, and he seemed prepared to stare at it until it went under. In the Kitchen Bridget was still singing one of her awful sad songs; the lyrics drifted in t...
Trina stared into her open kitchen cabinets. She was two and a half days into her pre-date-night ritual fast, and she was about to crack. Technically, she wasn’t going out on a date Saturday night, but Juliet was determined to have a man in her bed...
In the kitchen, her family nibbled Helen’s lemon squares. Melanie urged brownies on the nurses. “Take these,” she told Lorraine. “We can’t eat them all, but Helen won’t stop baking.” “Sweetheart,” Lorraine said, “everybody mourns ...
Once upon a time there was a woman who was just like all women. And she married a man who was just like all men. And they had some children who were just like all children. And it rained all day. The woman had to skewer the hole in the kitchen sink, ...
Many years later when I began training as a plastic surgeon, I understood something that I had not that day in the kitchen arguing for Thalia to leave Tinos for the boarding school. I learned that the world didn't see the inside of you, that it didn'...
In my mind, I gave the woman gifts. I gave her a candle stub. I gave her a box of wooden kitchen matches. I gave her a cake of Lifebuoy soap. I gave her a ceilingful of glow-in-the-dark planets. I gave her a bald baby doll. I gave her a ripe fig, swe...
Nora sobered and turned back to the windows, her breath fogging the glass. "We may as well lay some ground rules if we're going to be stuck here for a few days." "Okay." "You can keep the bed, I prefer the sofa. I don't cook. I'm not a maid, so pick ...
Since words elude me when I need them most, I learned long ago that I cannot count on QUALITY time with God when I want to pray. I need QUANTITY and regularity. Quality is not something I can predict. My husband, Andy, and I might schedule an elabora...
The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a raw cold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house was most depressing. The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak turn of intellect) burst into tears on beholding the kitc...
. . .Tell me, Clare: why on earth would a lovely girl like you want to marry Henry?' Everything in the room seems to hold its breath. Henry stiffens but doesn't say anything. I lean forward and smile at Mr. DeTamble and say, with enthusiasm, as thoug...
She’d rather make love to him then watch any movie. “We don’t have to. Did I do something wrong?” That made him turn to her. “Of course not.” “Oh. Then don’t you want to…” She trailed off, a blush rising. “Are you kidding me? Mo...
When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in great golden...
What Friedan gave to the world was, "the problem that has no name." She not only named it but dissected it. The advances of science, the development of labor-saving appliances, the development of the suburbs: all had come together to offer women in t...
Do you miss her? I blinked. Did I what? This was my best friend since preschool we were talking about, the girl whose snack and math homework I’d shared since before I had memorized my own phone number, who’d buried her cold, annoying little feet...
I looked after that Dudley family for too long, over six years. His daddy would take him to the garage and whip him with a rubber hose-pipe trying to beat the girl out a that boy until I couldn't stand it no more.... I wish to God I'd told John Green...
Waiting for a hot pocket to cook we’d fuck and be satisfied, barefoot on new york city apartment linoleum. A satisfying hot pocket and a big ass smile and a tight ass grip and a wall beside a random pipe beside the stove where we left palm and dick...
Heartache often drives us to consume things we wouldn't otherwise, such as an entire pint of Caramel Pecan Perfection high-fat ice cream, covered in ganache, the crack cocaine of frozed dairy. Twelve hundred calories per pint, six hundred and eighty ...
Idi Amin: You see. You are a doctor and a philosopher. Yes, I do have a good life now. Please, please. Sit here. I come from a very poor family, I think you should know this. My father left me when I was a child. The British Army; became my home. The...
