lover's spit left on repeat
The weather in Los Angeles can't make up its mind: I'm writing this in front of an open window in a tee shirt, but it's supposed to rain tomorrow, and then...
etymology
At some point last week I opened a Tinyletter draft, typed the word "etymology" into the subject line, pasted a link I didn't want to forget to send you into...
for free?
"Especially in the internet era, where publications field underfunded freelance “staffs” and personal-project bloggers are in impossible abundance, writers...
waiting rooms
The hardest thing, it turns out, is not to find a lesson. To tell myself: a broken bone isn't a sign, but a fact. A cyst bloomed in my pinky and it grew...
buddy tape
Three weeks ago I was in a wrestling class and someone hit the wrong finger at the wrong angle, and the bottom bone in my right pinky snapped. "Did you know...
a long time ago
When I was eighteen I picked up a Polaroid-- 80's, plastic, crappy-- that had been sitting around my room, and started taking pictures with it. I took what I...
what's next
So like, I wrote a lot last year. I was trying to figure out how to make a living, how to live a life, and I did it the way I always do things: intensely and...
+2
It turns out I snuck in a couple more pieces under the wire: one on FAKE JEWS for The Awl, and one on Los Angeles burning to close out Personal Geography....
waxing & waning
On the first night of Hanukkah, the moon is close to full, and we light one candle. The next night, the moon turns its face from us, and goes a little bit...
getting closer
bodies This weekend I was at a bar with my boxing coaches and we were talking about something, I don't remember what, there had been a lot of wine, and W....
sirens
A thing (small, largely inconsequential) that I do not forget: working in the New York office of my dad's company the summer I was 21. I was a secretary, but...
stats
In 2017 I published 56 stories on the internet, an average of one a week. I sent 30 Tinyletters, or one every other week. I wrote 50 sample pages for a book...
big sky
One of the first times I flew on an airplane without an adult it was to visit Zoey in Texas. I was eight or nine years old. Zo and her family had moved from...
falling
A small, good thing was last week when I was sitting near the top of the bowl of The Greek, surrounded by the hills and the night and some very good pals,...
phew
I don't know what to say. I wrote another essay for Medium about LA, this one focused on Dodger Stadium and the specific consequences of that "no history"...
randomly
or, a brief history of how these things happen: 1. When I was writing GRACE AND THE FEVER, I was thinking a lot about social media and self-presentation: how...
dumb shit
I've been working on two big pieces about the Kardashians for the last few months-- one, which came out last week, is about their relationship to plastic...
don't forget where you belong
"The oldest hotel in Los Angeles turned 90 this year, which means there are people living in the city who have been here longer than it has. I guess this is...
notes from nowhere
I haven't written a Tinyletter in weeks. I bet you can guess most of why: Charlottesville, vacation, post-vacation catch-up, Houston, heat wave. More or less...
praying
Have I told you the story of how I used to know Kesha a little bit? We did a summer program at Columbia together when we were 17. She was already a...