In case you haven’t heard, The History Channel recently aired a documentary suggesting that Amelia Earhart survived her trek across the Pacific. The evidence was based mostly on a photograph, recently discovered in the National Archives (where it had apparently been misfiled), showing a woman with an appearance similar to Earhart’s sitting on a dock watching a boat haul a plane that also looked a … Continue reading A Case Study in Post-Factualism
They had a tarot deck alright, but it wasn’t what I expected. It came with a free app download. I guess there really is an app for everything. I bought it and went to a cafe and waited for my quarry to make an appearance. While the app was downloading, I unwrapped the deck from the plastic. There was a little instruction manual folded at … Continue reading The Three of Swords
I held up the book. “I’m so sorry. I think my friend stole this the other day.” He scowled. His face was so old, his wrinkles magnified every expression. “Yes. She did.” He had a faint European accent. “I’d like to pay for it, if that’s okay.” He walked over to a wood phone stand at the back of the room, next to the last … Continue reading A spell you can touch
He stopped by work a few times. Chatted me up. I thought he was testing the water, seeing if we had the same chemistry face-to-face as we did sending messages back and forth. It wasn’t until later that I got the text. YOU FREE TONIGHT? UM. THINK SO. WHY? DINNER? I squealed like a little girl. I’m not proud. SURE MEET AT CRAM’S? 8-ISH? SOUNDS … Continue reading The Long Vacant Cupboard
I could see her from the end of the block. She was sitting on the sidewalk under the yellow-orange street lamp, next to a pile of white rubbish bags from the nail salon next door. There was something white sticking from her mouth, bigger than a cigarette. A thermometer maybe. And she was holding an ice pack over her eye. It was fresh, which meant … Continue reading A Terror and an Aphrodisiac
Do you remember the story your Uncle Wen told us before we went to get our tattoos? How Dragon, the water spirit, and Phoenix, the fire spirit, met and fell in love? How they became so enraptured with each other that they shirked all responsibility, seeking only to be in each other’s company? But without the dragon, the waters did not run and the rain … Continue reading The Dragon and the Phoenix
I need to be better at handling them. I don’t even take my own advice and end up making things worse. It’s just so damned hard. To be clear, pedantry is not disagreement — although any disagreement automatically opens a lot of ground for pedantry. Someone is not being pedantic simply because they have a different opinion or are making a contrary argument. The point … Continue reading Pedants are Assholes
