Journal of the Plague No. 8: Ashes
It’s 6 pm and everyone in my house but me is asleep—well, me and the cats, but they’re only awake because I just fed them. I’ve finally figured out (I…
Author: Laura
Journal of the Plague No. 7: Poetry
poetry makes nothing happen W.H. Auden, “In Memory of W.B. Yeats“ It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what…
Journal of the Plague No. 6: Peaches
Years and years ago, a number of things happened that were interrelated in ways I wouldn’t know at the time, or till many years later: I went on a trip…
Journal of the Plague No. 5: Students Against Sweatshops 20th Reunion
Today marks the second day of the 20th anniversary of a six-day sit-in by Students Against Sweatshops in the University of Iowa administration building, Jessup Hall. We were there after…
Journal of the Plague No. 4: The Pinto and the Cost of Human Life
Some of you may recall the Ford Pinto, a small, economical car manufactured from 1971-1980. They were cheap, popular, and had a bad habit of blowing up, causing serious injury…
Journal of the Plague No. 3: FUD
Under normal circumstances, I’d be hopping on Facebook in the morning to make my annual THE LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE KNOWN AS SPRING BREAK IS OVER post, but of course these…
Journal of the Plague No. 2
Many years ago, my grandmother took me shopping, as she always did, to buy my mother something for Christmas and something for her birthday. One year, when I was perhaps…
Journal of the Plague No. 1
I feel we should all be draping ourselves in white sheets at my house, but instead most of us are draping ourselves in wool, or at least I am, because…
And she remembered to feed me, or why I love Warren
I didn’t make any big endorsements this election cycle because I’m a 44 year old woman and I’m pretty sure nobody cares what I think, and I didn’get to caucus…
A Mom
There’s a photograph that High Country News published when Charles Bowden died of Bowden talking to Edward Abbey, author of Desert Solitaire and the reason so many of us fell…