Category: Uncategorized
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Working the Corner in Niagara Falls
It’s 11:40 a.m. and four old men are collected, like a clump of fungus, in the parking lot of the corner 7-11. They hold 40 oz. Ballentine’s Ales in dirty, gloved grips and discuss an impending “disability check.” When I walk by, coughs and groans bubble from their raspy throats. It’s been a long time…
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Valentine’s Day: What’s Love Got to Do With It?
February is said to be the most romantic month of the year. It’s a time to bask in a sea of sexuality without shame. We spend weeks, sometimes months out of the year, shooting Cupid’s arrows at the objects of our affection. Valentine’s Day should be for reaping the benefits of these efforts. But this…
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Splitting the Bill in a Post-Feminist World
First dates are like fire drills – sometimes they are real, but most of the time they are false alarms, but we are still lucky to get out of them alive. I’m moving up from not introducing my boyfriends to my parents to completely not telling anyone I’m going on a date at all. I…
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All Dogs Go to Heaven, All Cats Go to Hell
Monogamy bores me. I prefer to keep it casual. My “official relationships” last anywhere from three to five months. After that, I can’t take it anymore. I resort to the quick n’ easy break up – via phone, text, or just out of nowhere one day. This doesn’t make me a bad person –…
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Giving & Receiving
Celebrating with those you can’t publicly acknowledge I’m at work early in the a.m, when a handsome late-thirties yuppie rushes up to me. “Please tell me this is part of the sweater sale?” he implores, holding up a gray French Connection fuzzball. It’s a former state Assemblyman and DA, whom I immediately recognize. Hello, he’s…
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Inside the Boulevard Motel
A couple years ago, a Motel 6 on the outskirts of town – or maybe it was a Super 8 – found itself under investigation. The shabby motel housed an intricate prostitution ring, and plenty of drugs. The week of the bust, a girl’s dead body was found in one of the rooms. It appeared to…
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Roofies At Sunset
When you are away at college, you are encapsulated in a bubble. It is a bubble in which the morally reprehensible is in fact, permissible. Being a “college student” can actually be a powerful excuse against the status quo, the law, and any semblance of normalcy. I went to a small liberal-arts college surrounded by woods,…
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