People you should have emailed.

I spent yesterday going through a giant stack of unanswered story submissions stretching back to a date I will not make public. Sometimes my job feels less like an “editor,” and more like a professional reader of email. There are just so many people in the world, and it turns out a good percentage have my […]

Romantic delusions and teenage crushes and hair-sprayed bangs

When I was 10 and 11, my next-door-neighbor and I used to talk on the phone at night. She and I were 50 yards away from one another, but confined to our own rooms, and so  we would tie up the line telling each other fantasies about John Taylor from Duran Duran — how we met him after […]

Three Shades of the “Fifty Shades” screening.

1. Tuscan Red The first thing I can tell you about the PR people for the “Fifty Shades of Grey” movie is that they are very, very serious about spelling out the title correctly. Twice, in a hurry, I typed up “50 Shades” and twice — very politely, by the same person — I was informed that […]

Perhaps every road trip begins with a fantasy.

In October, I loaded up my red Honda and drove out west for two months. A tent, a Coleman stove, a guitar, and zip-up high-heel boots. I wanted to soak up both city and country, the spectacular hush of a canyon in the pre-dawn, and the gaudy 10pm bustle of Las Vegas. I had every […]

A person who was going to write a book

For many years, I was a person who was going to write a book. Friends introduced me this way: She’s going to write a book one day. I said this to myself, in quiet moments of contemplation, or in grand rallying moments when what you want out of life gets scrunched up against your nose. […]

Erotic dreams about Ryan Gosling

Last night, I woke up at 2:30am. Couldn’t sleep. I read for a while, and then turned to NetFlix. Blue Valentine. Have you seen that movie? I really, really like it. It has the texture of real life. It’s the kind of play/movie/story I was always trying to write in college — uh, see, there’s […]

The Fabulous, the Terrible Mr. Lumpyhead

Mr. Lumpyhead was born too early to a mother too young. Because she was too young and too fond of things like drugs and alcohol, which help people forget unpleasant realities like their unwanted pregnancy, this too-young mother never bothered to go to a doctor during her pregnancy. When Mr. Lumpyhead was born too early, […]

McSWEENEY’S BOOKS: A Play

  McSWEENEY’S BOOKS: A Play in Three Acts Setting: McSweeney’s Books, a bookstore, curiosity shop, and shoe rental opened by Dave Eggers in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The store is empty except for one employee — a young man, let’s say 25, with square glasses, a tight navy shirt, and dark wavy hair, matted to his […]