Emergent Phenomena Exhibiting Novel Regularities

This is not a good place to be creeped out in.

Many people have been creeped out here before me, sure. It’s a cliché. But that does not help when it happens. And it’s happened. Now. To me.

I am all creeped out in New Orleans.

This hotel room is creepy and the lobby is creepy, and I can’t find the man I came looking for. But I can’t get drunk in my room, either. For me that is not an option. For standing with one’s back to the wall – my back – and scanning for something to be creeped out by is no way to get drunk. Not even in New Orleans.

How to Disappear Completely

You know, a couple times a year, I am asked to speak before groups of homeless youth. Whole rooms full of homeless youth, even.

And usually, I’ll do it.

I am asked to speak before rooms full of homeless youth because I am seen, in some quarters, as a formerly homeless youth success story.

Yeah, I know. Me. A success!

I am seen in these quarters as a formerly homeless youth success story because I used to be homeless. From the age of twelve all the way to age eighteen, I was. But I am not homeless anymore. Now I’m just formerly homeless. Now I’ve got somewhere to live and two jobs and three academic degrees and a busload of kids and a blog that gets dozens of page views a month.

A success. So today’s homeless youth obviously need to hear all about me.

I Will Make a Cool Gif of My Head

“Reality is a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs.” – Lily Tomlin

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I cannot write today.

I cannot write today and I will not write tomorrow and then I’m going out of town on Thursday, so things are going to be pretty dead around here for as far as I can see.

6 Things You Didn't Know About Vaginas

The corners of the rooms were in all the right places.

It was perfect, and perfect in more than just a sort of feng shui kind of way. It was home from the very first moment we laid eyes on it, which just so happens to have been ten years ago this very day.

Home. Like the place came with our memories already inside it. A familiar scent we’d never smelled before.

The perfect number of rooms. The correct amount of closet space. Close proximity to all the right schools. The proper distance from Dana’s work. And with newly installed energy-efficient appliances, to boot.

There was only one problem.

The price.

It was too low.