Toward the end of 1995, it suddenly hit me that I would probably never see her again. She was spending the next semester at another school, studying poetry under a mentor in the land of cows and sorority blondes and Amish people, and I would…
In 1994, I met the love of my life. She says she knew it right away. It took me a bit longer, but I’ve always been a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to stuff like that. She was this quiet girl dressed…
My first email address was just a string of letters and numbers: my first and last initials, a three-digit number, and then the letter “b.” I think the number was the number of students in my graduating class with my initials who had gotten email…
I moved out of the house in 1992 and started college. I came home for a total of two summers after that, one after my freshman year and one after my senior year, but otherwise that was pretty much it for living at home. One…
1991. It’s the last year you had a best friend. Not a circle of friends. Not a girlfriend, even if she’s also your best friend, because that’s different. We’re talking about a platonic guy best friend, the kind you hang out with and you don’t…
The friend I mentioned yesterday, the one who gave me most of his Cure tapes, sat behind me in Social Studies my sophomore year. We were passing notes. What? Okay, right. Gather round again, kids. You know how when you want to talk to somebody…
1989. The year of the dramapocalypse. It probably seems strange to anyone who knows me today, but prior to 1989 I had no real hope of being onstage. I’d been a mediocre singer in middle school choir, and that was about it. I’d had hopes…
“Come and have a look at this, Chandlowe,” said the entomologist to the art detective. Chandlowe shuffled over to the library table and the circle of light from the one lightbulb that still worked on the fourth floor. Behind him, in the dimness, library patrons…
Oh god. Middle school. Why is it such a weird time? You move to a small town in upstate New York. You start getting chunky. You have to wear deodorant and shower in gym class. You grow, and later block out the memory of having…
Okay, kids, gather round. Come up close where you can see. Can any of you tell me what this is? No, it’s not an iPhone. Are you kidding? I know it’s about the same size and shape, but look how thick it is. It has…