Migraine Nights

Carlita querida,
I hate trying to sleep. It would be nicer to be outside or by the ocean with a gas stove and a dog. Or the dunes, although there are wind-storms at night. Or a festival playground.
Are short stories always sad? Why are Latin American poems, even the good ones, so often entitled things like [...]

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Lo-lee-ta

Dearest,
In the midst of yet another migraine, I’m rereading Lolita and thinking about what happens when one becomes that (to Humbert Humbert, anyway) dull but desirous thing, a “handsome woman.” Bovine, large-bodied, with all the S-shapes curved and grown in. Tumescent, in fact. Off the pill, desire constitutes a persistent and prominent part of my [...]

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Migraine Nights

Dearest Carla Fran,
Back after a peculiar night. At various points I slept, writhed, read Spenser criticism, slept more, did half-somersaults in reverse to bend the iron girdle around my neck, made toast, tried to e-mail a gentleman to whom I owe a phone call, couldn’t, read Lucky Jim, carved a canteloupe, and created a [...]

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Crushing Headaches

Dear Carla Fran,
I woke up in the middle of one, and it has been with me all day. The longer I have these aches–migraines? tension headaches?–the longer they feel like a color, a really bright and painful shade of blue, a little like the Windows XP welcome screen.
My reason for writing you, however, [...]

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