Important Conversation about Music and Commitment The evening begins with Dan Kessler giving the prologue, introducing me through an anecdote about his night...
Last... Eliot wandered without direction through the Annandale University library. It wasn't that he was unfamiliar or unaccustomed to libraries. He used to...
Wake to Sleep "We make the circuit. We see the body and we leave. We don't make eye contact. We don't talk to anyone unnecessarily. Are these rules clear? In...
A Second to Fracture She promised to call me after her fight, as she always does. I know her so well by now that the outcome is plain before she says a word,...
Unwashed Strangers Emily has never before come on my recent excursions to New Paltz -- they generally occurring because she is otherwise occupied and I refuse...
too precious for its own good Rejection is nearly as steady as death and taxes, rejections of the mortal coil and fiscal comfort themselves. Weeks ago, Emily...
I am in pain. Not physically, that would almost be easier, as I am familiar with my body in all its states. No, I am in pain because one whom I love is hurting...
Hie Hie Orien Rose As I stand in the common area at my school and watch teenagers indulge in adolescent drama, a very adult drama in the form of a pretty...
Smother India For the last few weeks, we have been doing everything for the last time. This is the last time we will watch American TV together, this is the...
Fat WiccansThe wish list from this site failed to include a few critical needs: compassion, common sense, wisdom, empathy, social skills, self esteem....
Second Impressions I cannot help what people have decided about me - even what they have decided about version of me I have never been except in their eyes -...
Songs About Ghosts The problem seems to be in telling the spirits that I intend to take a picture. Had I just snapped one, I imagine they would not have felt...
Momentarily Here It is only as I am leaving that I begin to feel I was there at all. Kristin - the friend of the Telephonically Estranged Sarah, not Zack's...
Exclusive Recluse I meet Flynn for dinner mostly as impetus to get out of the house. (I know most people would kill for the time off that I have, but I do not...
And We Are So Polite Dives Dives looks at me and concertedly turns her head away, actively ignoring me as I stand on the street in New Paltz listening to the...
Cryptosporidium It is nine days in the hospital before anyone correctly diagnosis Emily, days with nauseating medicine and needles keeping her alive, days with...
Substance Abuse It is the last class of the first session of Summer Institute for the Gifted. For the last three weeks, I had been managing five different...
Coca Cola recently was publicly forced to admit their brand of bottled water Dasani was not, as their mountainous label might imply, bottled at the source of...
Stormy Petrel Fifteen-minute lunches and sporadic dinners in the Vassar dining hall aren't enough for someone who I wish played a more central role in my life....
beautiful hellhole I haven't written yet, not since I left for India, not since I've been home, not since I left the country early, not since... well, last...
Expectations' Ashes We strive for consistency in our vacation to the shores of Lake George, down to stopping at the same mediocre bagel store we visited last...
Thank you for all of your kind attention so far with my novel in progress. I am removing the individual chapters beyond Chapter 10 from the web while I edit a...
Since we moved to a new server, we also got some new toys. As such, I created a completely new and utterly independent Vale Falls site. Really, it is a...
Who Is Caleb Potter One cannot travel a mile in Cape Cods without seeing hand painted signs reading "All yer mateys arrr rootin' fer ye Yellowbeard" or "Pray...
Estatic Fanatic It is only three in the afternoon, but Emily insists that I drop her in front of Dutchess Stadium for the Counting Crows concert at six. I do...
I Swear To You Leaning covetously over a first edition of a witchcraft book that has seen over seven decades of marginalia and wear, I hear Dan before I see...
Turnstile On the roof of the loft -- the flat an ever-changing collection of Dan Kessler's friends occupy -- he sings a song about one of the occupants with...
Ungodly Flirt "It's that you are a-" and Jacqui pauses for the right term, perhaps out of politeness or discomfort. "An ungodly flirt?" I finish. "Exactly." ...
Our Home By Degrees I shuttle between stability and chaos. I took this boarding school job so I would have a free place for Emily and me while she finished her...
He watched her stand over the unimpressive plot of sparse ground. He could nearly smell her uneasiness, nervousness. She should feel this way. A cemetery at...
Having problems with message search?
Fill out this form to ensure your group is one of the first to be migrated to the new message search system.
