Last night as a friend and I were standing around Central Square after a fairly lackluster show, a homeless-looking man came up to us. After the usual spare-change routine, he started telling us the story of why he was out on the streets that night. His girlfriend of 14 years had kicked him out of their apartment earlier that day. She had been ( Read more... )

Two years later, and my entire worldview is still mostly based upon the young adult novels of Lloyd Alexander and the Cecil/Cain relationship in Final Fantasy IV.


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The Universe spoke to me all summer long and into the fall through silly, maudlin allegories. I would be sitting at a coffee shop in the Square, for instance, and, seeing some boy who reminded me a bit of myself when I was 12 or so, I would think, "God, what I wouldn't give to trade bodies with that boy and be 12 again." And the boy would turn ( Read more... )

My sister infected me with strange, virulent Colorado germs during her visit here last week, and I've spent most of the time since then holed up in my apartment, tossing and turning in feverish delerium. Being inside all day has given me the chance to spy on my mysterious next-door neighbor and try to find out the reason for her constant shrieks of ( Read more... )

This is the most terrifying, diabolical, Orwellian thing I have read in a long while:

A radical scheme to vaccinate children against future drug addiction is being considered by ministers, The Independent on Sunday can reveal ( Read more... )

Every so often, lately, I hear these harrowing screams and mangled sobs coming from behind my kitchen wall, from the woman living in the apartment next to mine. It starts off as a sort of muted snuffling, then quickly escalates into full-fledged shrieking that usually goes on for about an hour. I can make out a few words and broken phrases: PLEASE ( Read more... )

"Go balloons," said convention producer Don Mischer, instructing the balloon droppers. "Go balloons. Go balloons!" His voice was becoming increasingly frantic -- and it was going out over CNN.

At one point Mischer used a profanity to rebuke his balloon-dropping crew. CNN was still broadcasting his voice.

Go balloons! BALLOONS! What's happening ( Read more... )

This morning I pissed away $2000 in non-refundable tuition with a casual little click of a "withdraw" button, thus ending my unsuccessful stab at a glorious summertime return to academic respectability after the fiasco of the spring semester. Everything began with such promise, too - a modern poetry professor who looked strikingly like the ( Read more... )

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I spent the Fourth more or less plastered, and while the entire city was up on their rooftops or down by the river hoping for a glimpse of the Esplanade, I was staggering into nearly-empty trivia nights where they were playing neutral milk hotel's king of carrot flowers, with its lush sentimental were's and would's and tortured memories of repeated ( Read more... )