I am having a bad day. A hard day, following a hard week, in the middle of a hard month. We’re all having days like these, I’m sure, when our usual balms aren’t available. We can’t meet friends for drinks after work, or go to a movie, or run to the gym and punch a…
Category: Stories about Jessica
On how to see
I am doing an in-person interview because the editor who has hired me to write the piece I’m working on prefers her writers to do in-person interviews. This is important only because while I understand the point—it helps build rapport with someone you are about to ask a bunch of very personal questions—I am thinking…
On not being quiet
On Wednesday Jessica had an early release day from school and so we went into the studio and made some glass. Jessica is a glass artist, an eighteen-year-old senior in high school, my daughter and my ward. She is cognitively impaired and through a painful and too-lengthy guardianship process, her father and I proved to…
On using a knife and fork
Jessica’s last day of school is really just a last morning of school, so when I pick her up, the whole day stretches ahead of us. “How about lunch in Lawrence?” I say. “Yes.” She is without hesitation. Jessica is a girl who likes lunch. “Where?” “Let’s go to Encore,” I say. “They have those…
On Halloween decorations
This is a Halloween essay from 2011. This weekend, at Jessica’s behest, we decorated the house for Halloween. Now, at your house, Halloween may be all black and orange and eerie music, but at our house, it is quite pink and sparkly. The witch’s broom glitters, and the pumpkin has a cheerful smile, and…
On the view from the other side
We are watching a movie, a romantic comedy, and I don’t even remember the title right now because the movie doesn’t matter; the movie never mattered, it is just the thing we are doing together when I look up to see that Jessica is crying. I have no idea why; there is nothing we have…