Category: Life/Self
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Friend of the Bottle
She sits at the oak desk with eyeliner and gin, with lipstick and eyeshadow. The silk stocking she’s not yet donned sits next to the plate of lime wedges she had the foresight to slice after reading the letter and before unstoppering the bottle. She sits at the oak desk and ignores all that’s on…
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Thigh Highs
Short Story Ellie pulled her hip waders up over her jeans and ran the straps through her belt. “There you go, Baby,” she said to Nathan, “You wanted to see me in thigh highs.” She mock-posed and laughed, the sun reflecting off her aviator sunglasses and her thick, black braids lying on her shoulder. Behind…
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Three Notes from Semliki
Non-scientific field notes from a chimp tracker Semliki Note #1 — Data Up early with the bats in a soft rain, I’m walking down a steep path to the climate station we’ve set up at the river. The forest is silent except for some restless insects and one or two birds. I raise the kerosene lantern high to…
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Dusty Around the Eyes
Names change colors when you are dusty around the eyes. Watch a gerenuk at sunset while listening to a Walkman. These two odd sentences are mnemonics I constructed to remind myself of chains of thought that occurred to me while learning to do anthropological fieldwork in East Africa. Searching the forests of the Semliki Valley…