Families

The In Crowd

November 29, 2013

I’m a leader and other girls do what I say and fifteen are helping me deal with Rebecca. I’m bigger and can easily beat her up by myself but that’s not the point. I want everyone to hate her. She used to see a guy who dropped her for me. That’s not enough either. The…

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End of Suffering

November 25, 2013

Frankly, I don’t often feel well and really should say I never do. I don’t know what the problem is but try to feel better by smoking bath salts, not the stuff you use in the tub but a combination of chemicals that’re way stronger than amphetamines. This morning the bath salts hit me much…

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Our Son

September 13, 2013

He’s good son until bipolar disorder attacks in high school and makes crazy, and Dad and I are relieved he marries bipolar woman and moves away so we rarely see. Years later he calls and says she divorced him, and I overrule Dad and say, we’ve got to make room. In few days he’s scarier…

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Our Final Days

July 16, 2012

Early on a Saturday morning in late June my stepfather, age eighty-seven and already weakening, suffered a stroke that rendered him unconscious. Inside a large hospital emergency room the only doctor on duty was too busy to look closely, so a few nurses and technicians strongly sedated him, stuck a tube down his throat and…

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Lion Family

June 18, 2012

author of “the serengeti lion” doesn’t understand father ripping cubs to death or mother eating their guts Source: “Wild Things” by David Samuels in Harper’s June 2012.

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Ugandan Birth Control

June 18, 2012

ugandan mother of seven declines birth control so husband won’t beat again

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Open Door

March 30, 2012

open door lures boy into painted room ejected by howling father

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Bobby Brown – The Whole Truth

February 28, 2012

Before presenting what Bobby Brown allegedly said and did, I must explain this book was originally conceived as an autobiography and author Derrick Handspike, according to his account, hung out with and interviewed the singer for a year, diligently wrote the book, and later squirmed as Brown and his advisers delayed final preparations for publication.…

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Oral Alarm Clock

February 21, 2012

deep voice grinds my name too early every morning

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Big Al Allosaurus Responds to Brother – Part 2

February 11, 2012

How strange my brother accuses me of predatory incompetence and cognitive ineptitude. Let me clarify dark history with precision dear brother never practiced or understood. As youngsters he frequently tried to maim me and other siblings but I always overpowered him and rebuked with restrained bites. Our mother never disciplined him and would’ve perhaps turned…

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Brother Allosaurus Remembers Big Al – Part 1

February 10, 2012

I’m not jealous my brother Big Al receives much publicity a hundred fifty million years after death. In life we emerged from the same subterranean nest of a hundred allosaurus eggs and soon, following carnivorous instinct, bit, clawed, and wrestled each other, and serendipitously survived while most siblings died from illnesses or attacks by dinosaurs…

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Proper Rest

November 6, 2011

father died from drink but also suffered arising early carlos avoids that asleep all day mother ironing his clothes

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Daddy’s Bikini

November 5, 2011

next to bikini he stands face red as daughter’s hair next to gut she poses smile big as father’s frown

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Edna Wallace: 1916-2009

April 1, 2009

This is a tribute I wrote for a family anthology about my Aunt Edna Wallace, whose memorial tribute is Saturday One of my most exciting memories as a kid came when I was about 12 in the mid-1960’s and visited the Wallaces in big L.A.  I thought it was cool I had an aunt, Edna,…

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