* “Nervous about tomorrow?” Andy Flood asked as he walked into the break room that morning. I stood by the counter, stirring my coffee and deliberating over my resolution from a few nights ago. “Actually, no. I’m kind of looking forward to it.” “Good. I’m glad.” “Mostly because of what Carmen may do.” I watched …
The Wedding and the Web: Part 5
* At the co-ed bridal shower a few evenings later, I watched Sanford and Charlotte twirl around on the dance floor. Our parents had rented a much smaller ballroom in a smaller hotel for the event, but it was no less swanky, as it was a black-tie affair. Caroline, Danny, Carmen, and I sat at …
The Wedding and the Web: Part 4
* Charlotte eventually settled on a venue for the wedding—the grand ballroom of the Hotel del Coronado. Gradually, painstakingly, the colors were picked, the dress was finally chosen, and the bridal party wined, dined, and fêted the bride-to-be. Specifically, this bridal party consisted of the three of us: one matron of honor and two …
The Wedding and the Web: Part 3
* When I wasn’t sitting by Charlotte’s side during the wedding preparations, I was a litigation assistant for a law firm in the city. The world of lawsuits and trials was a significant diversion from frilly dresses and color swatches, and far more interesting. Nevertheless, my busy job didn’t necessarily mean I could escape from …
The Wedding and the Web: Part 2
Charlotte may have been the fragile baby, but I was the one with the problem. The short of it, akin to a plot from a frothy, clichéd soap opera: we had all grown up together, the Vine sisters and Sanford; I fell in love with Sanford somewhere along the way; he fell for Charlotte. And why …
The Wedding and the Web: Part 1
So while in the middle of a strange, hormone-fueled rage sometime in 2013, I wrote a short story one evening while sitting on the couch in our living room, not getting up and not pausing in my vicious scribbling (yep, I wrote in longhand in a spiral notebook like it was 1992) until I was finished, …
Les Poèmes.
Autumn: Brevity I pull open the doors for you, my intermittent love, eager to greet you with the cool kisses of yet another season. It does not bother me that you arrive once a year bearing your all-consuming brevity. It does not trouble me that I compete with the other colors in your world. When …
Another Love.
Is it the whimsical melody? Those lyrics? (If you don’t want me, baby, I'll find another, another love) Is it the fact that this song, beloved since I discovered Alice Smith a year or so ago, now takes on a personal poignancy that I'd rather not elaborate on at this moment? Sigh. But I will elaborate …
Products from Heaven: It’s Shea, Baby, All Shea. [The Body Edition]
Apparently, it wasn't enough that I use almost every product in the wonderful and quite effective SheaMoisture Coconut & Hibiscus line for my mind-of-its-own natural hair. I had to go and discover that SheaMoisture has amazing products for bath & body, too. (Where was I, you ask? Living under a rock, apparently. It takes square pegs some …
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Blahvember?
Ever since I fell in love with autumn (since 1986 when we stepped foot on American soil and I experienced my first fall, in case you were wondering), I've wondered about November. What is this month that pales in comparison to October, my favorite month? It doesn't have the roaring engines of September, when fall …
This Square Peg. 