That’s a Tomato Plant, Sweetie — I was proud of that “Dare to Say No” T-shirt that mom picked up at the JS (that’s what we called any of the myriad of thrift shops where we bought all our clothes except for shoes and underwear (it’s short for Junk Store). An impressionable, eager to please kid…

Writing the stuff that hurts I have an essay that went live this week. I wrote it months ago and I’m happy that it’s found a good home. …

A story of loving two men — It wasn’t love at first sight or anything so profound. Instead, it was a gradual process of getting to know one another. Nigel was a biologist. He’d written his doctoral dissertation on the milkweed bug. I learned many interesting facts from Nigel. When I complained about the critters that were…

How my phone became my BFF — We had a black rotary phone on a small end table in the living room. If I picked it up very carefully and held my breath, I might be lucky and our neighbors, our party-line, wouldn’t know I was listening in. I’d hold my hand tightly over the mouthpiece, but…

After all these years — When my son was three years old, he told me a story. He described being in utero. Swimming, his hair floating in the waves. The whooshing sound like a heartbeat, like his drum. A feeling like when the cat makes bread on his chest and purrs. He said there was…

What’s changed in a year? — As a home care nurse in Baltimore, I learned years ago how to get in and out of a house without touching any surface with my bare hands. My first AIDS patient had open sacral wounds and explosive diarrhea. …

To make up my mind — Phyllis had always had a difficult time making up her mind. Her mother never gave her much chance to practice, and so that particular skill just never fully developed. Regular or decaf? Chocolate or vanilla? The white socks or the blue ones? Simple choices people make hundreds of times every…