Author Archives: sputterpub

That Thanksgiving she met Larry. She knew she wanted to give him her virginity as soon as they started dating; she was that grateful for his attention. She needn’t have been – anyone could have told her that she looked … Continue reading →

She started to diet. She bought calorie counters, exercise books, and magazines. She tried to fast but found it too punishing. She tried to exercise but it was boring and uncomfortable. She loved starting diets, because it was easy to … Continue reading →

For 94% of her life, Sheila has been fat. She started out extremely small but she caught up and passed the growth chart averages by the time she crawled. Hers was a premature birth, in 1975. She surprised everyone by … Continue reading →

My father is a reactionary man. I don’t mean that politically – he’s quite unpolitical really, except that he’s obnoxiously cynical. I mean Dad is always expending his energy reacting to something; he never initiates a process or steps back … Continue reading →

Dad was warm and affectionate and easy to be with, and he always seemed glad to me. It’s a bit jarring for me to hear how unhappy he then was. I can’t exactly argue about it, since he agrees with … Continue reading →

My mother swears my father used to be happy. She points at the old black-and-white photo on her picture wall, as evidence. She says they shot it about a year before I was born: probably in late 1975, right after … Continue reading →