The Sill of the World

This covers the week of 2/14/21 - 2/20/21. ache We used to sit in this room with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and the lamplight on the r...

This covers the week of 2/7/21 - 2/13/21. dork The role she's been asked to audition for is an improbable one: the effortlessly gorgeous...

This covers the week of 1/31/21 - 2/6/21. complaints As the elevators fail to come for 15, then 20 minutes, I speak to a neighbor from down ...

This covers the week of 12/20/20 - 12/26/20. cinnamon Errands sweetened by puffs of cinnamon-laden wind from the vendors' carts. frustra...

This covers the week of 12/13/20 - 12/19/20. linguistic An app with a green owl mascot is helping me work on Hebrew writing and French readi...

This past Sunday, I went on a group hike from Tarrytown, NY to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. The hike more or less followed a segment of...

212 confinement A young tree strait-jacketed by ice. contorted In black and white film: the grace of a ballerina and the grip of polio...

208 contrary I tell her that she can sit on the rug, if she likes. She smiles and sits just off the rug, by an inch. defenses Kids sc...

206 controlled Sometimes the only way to avoid falling is to lower yourself to your knees, by choice, before finding firmer ground to sta...

Collection: 50 Great American Short Stories Editor: Milton Crane Title: Cluney McFarrar's Hardtack Author: John McNulty During the ...

dotted Getting speckled with snow as I take a long walk. embitter As everyone is celebrating, I taste the undercurrents in the room. Al...

Week in Seven Words #155 cat's cradle The dog criss-crosses her leash around and through my legs. contrasts The weather, in a way,...

gauze Fat snowflakes swimming past my eyes. The world is wrapped up in snow. macabre Despair is always waiting with open arms but I don...

Title: The Damned Thing Author: Ambrose Bierce Where I read it: Fifty Great American Short Stories (ed. Milton Crane) A creepy little ho...

bibliophilic The takeout sushi and blaring battery-powered car have distracted him for long enough. He crawls to the bookcase in the corne...

bidirectional There is a link between the ability to remember the past and the ability to imagine the future. People who struggle to recall...

anterograde He was a man with anterograde amnesia - he could encode no new episodic memories. He had some past memories to anchor him a lit...

buffer Conversation becomes a refuge from stress and a stream of relentless demands. gelid The sidewalk is frozen over, though I don't k...

ambuscade I feel a little unwell at the beginning of the week, but it passes, and I let down my guard. As it turns out, the microscopic fie...

conflagration It takes me a few seconds to register that the sky is full of smoke, a great expanding cloud that thins out with distance, mix...