It’s 4:30 AM, December 4, and I am stricken by survivor’s guilt. On this date in 1969, Chicago police, colluding with the FBI, executed Fred Hampton while he slept. He was twenty-one. On this date in 1969, I was midway through my freshman year of college, oblivious. What have I…

Until it wasn’t funny. — Pak’s Alterations squatted third from the corner, one of a handful of tiny businesses that butted up against each other, along the block. A rare books shop, a used-record store, a juice bar. Their doors opened right onto the sidewalk, hand-lettered signs on cardboard stuck in the windows. Curbside customer…

The trees don’t care — Frequently while I’m reading, a sentence grabs me and forces me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life. “Nature had an infuriating…

Frequently while I’m reading, a sentence grabs me and forces me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life. “This town is good…

Hey, who invited my childhood to the party? — I grabbed my straw hat from the dashboard as Ben waited beside the car, and then, my hand in his, we followed the aroma of hickory-smoked burgers to the wooden fence that enclosed our friend’s back yard. After a daylong retreat, I anticipated Kate’s barbecue like a kid looking forward…

In the presence of a dying stranger, I woke up to the complicated nature of mother-daughter love. — I should have been a better daughter. The oncologist said the lump in Mother’s breast was the biggest and oldest he’d ever seen. A ghostly silhouette on the mammogram of a fifty-year-old. She refused to explain why she’d let it go untreated. Hinted that she didn’t mind dying, and besides…

Happy Golden Years Senior Living (Friends! Fun! Full Service!) is evicting V’s mom, because she needs full-time care, instead of fun. They won’t do her laundry any more; residual fecal matter violates health department codes. They deliver an ultimatum. Move her or they’ll check her in to the emergency room. …

Pain jackhammers my skull. White hot shards stab my neck. Pins and needles radiate down my shoulders. My jaw aches from the effort to speak, as a chiropractor interviews me. “Have you been in any car accidents?” Dr. Nicole asks. I flinch at the sound of her voice. When I…

Was it really gold lamé? — When I was a kid, I got locked out of our East 15th Street house. My sibs were asleep; I was in pj’s, hanging out on the screened-in front porch with the bratty neighbor girl. After our usual argument, I opened the door to go back into my house. Bratty…