A runner can be a rug

"Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you."
— Gabrielle Calvocoressi


Sometimes I feel like a pioneer woman, like on New Year's Eve when I threw together a banana bread. I have the recipe by heart. While the bread was in the oven, I ran out to the ShopRite in the dark to exchange some faulty citrus I'd bought just that afternoon.

I couldn't find my receipt, but the lady at the customer service window took my word for it, she took the clementines, too small for their skins – her theory was they were frozen and thawed – and sent me to Produce to choose new ones.

When I came back to the window, she was selling lottery tickets to the store manager, the mood was buoyant, as if he'd already won, and given her a cut.

*

The day before that, I wrote at the library, moving from table to table with the sun.

A family of eight came in for passports for all six children. The library staff working the front desk were good sports, they tag-teamed it, one gal took the photos, the other laid out the paperwork on one of the large wooden tables, reviewed every line and checkbox.

The sixth child was but an infant, one staffer laid a white sheet of cardboard down on a table, the mother laid down the child, hovering close. The other staffer cooed at the baby, took the photo, it was over in a heartbeat, no tears. The other five children were reading and coloring.

I basked in the feeling, in the scene, a sharp contrast to the coffee shops where men shout like vacuum cleaner/crypto salesmen at people real or imagined/virtual.

*

Grove Street turns into Elm Street without any warning. Broad Street turns almost ninety degrees and keeps its name.

At home we flick the lights so we don't startle each other. Like the waiters in Vinegar Hill House yelling "Corner!" as they round the corner and go up or down the blind steps.

News

I'm getting ready for my residency at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), I'll be there February 9 through March 10.

Would love your book recs, just reply to this email. And if you're culling your shelves, I'll happily take books or galleys off your hands – Ilya is driving me down – and donate them to VCCA at the end of my residency. I'm especially interested in memoir, literary fiction in English and translation, contemporary poetry. Things that didn't get enough attention/airtime.

*

"Search Work: A Collective Inquiry into the Job Hunt" (OR Books, 2026) is now available for pre-order at 15% off, exclusively from OR Books. I believe you can also pre-order at your favorite indie bookstore.

Save the date – March 25 – for a book launch party!

Thank you, Rachel Meade Smith, for including my essay in this visionary and timeless collection! It's my first essay in a book, I am over the moon. And thank you, OR Books, for giving this book a home.