Nonfiction

The sun was setting and neon lights snapped on all over the place. Orange and white MUNI buses coasted along. . .

Nobody walks in L.A. Another lie. . .

Accept letting go of the ice cream and nonstop fish, I don’t deny you your pleasure, nor myself mine. . .

And then I saw death as an intruder, standing in the doorway of my mother’s bedroom. . .

She killed herself the year after I graduated. That she killed herself and was half-Asian was coincidental. Or, no one made the connection. But I could not help making it. . .

On Twitter, she shares reviews of her recent memoir, which is being touted as reinvention of the form. Meanwhile, on my Twitter, I posted a picture of a California Raisins coffee mug I found at the thrift store. It was 99 cents, and it says “Merry Christmas 1988.” A grand new vessel for my tears. . .

If there was a God, He must have been rolling in the aisles of that out-of-sight sanctuary when, on the day I was supposed to marry Charlie, I pronounced “I don’t” instead. . .

A field is a field—outdoors, bounded by trees or a stream, a road, a house, the sky—or indoors, bounded by mirrors, the edge of the sprung floor, the wings. . .

My husband can’t keep a steady job, so instead I grow inordinately fond of his ambient sound collages. Since he will not, I eventually try to sell them on his behalf . . .

It is around 10 p.m., our usual bedtime, but we both know that we will be up at midnight, and then again at 5 a.m. . .