When my kids were little, back in the late 1980s, we bought our new house and took on a bigger mortgage. I was a stay-at-home mom. After moving in, my husband John got permanently laid off from his ... [+]
Perhaps it is because of my parent's constant arguing about it, or because I watched my mother trapped in an alcoholic marriage because she had none of her own, that my relationship with money has ... [+]
When I was in college in Southern California, I met people who had lots of money. No one ever said, "I'm rich." That wouldn't have been cool. I still remember a guy reacting to one of the then ... [+]
Tuesday is five-dollar night at the Funny Farm. Five dollars for a murder burger. Five dollars for a Witchwick's glowing amber ale. I get up for five minutes. The audience at the farm is hostile ... [+]
Paul waits for Blake Biegler in the dusty field behind the school. Biegler is ten minutes late. He pokes his fingers through the chainlink, staring beyond the suicide barriers toward Golden Lakes. The ... [+]
"For even saintly folk will act like sinners / unless they have their customary dinners." Bertolt Brecht, The Threepenny Opera We decide to celebrate the Fourth of July at Parker's Dam. There's ... [+]
Callie put out plates on her little half-moon table and opened the cartons of Chinese food that had been purchased by her brother, Andy. When he left, he would gather up the trash and the recycling ... [+]
We were old friends. We never talked about the time he tried to run me over with his car. He was twenty-two and rich and he took me places: bars, restaurants, even shows on Broadway. We were lovers ... [+]
The pundits say the zombie economy is complicated because they have no economy. The cornerstone of any economy is money. Zombies lack money. They have no jobs except for biting and staring. They are ... [+]
Before we buried Oma, she had been vain, in the same way that a muscular man is vain. She moved like fingers in a cash drawer, fingers that picked and snapped. Oma once cried, "O!" Her finger on ... [+]
Nikki is so tired of pulling cash from random places. She found $200 rolled inside a pair of pantyhose that were stuffed beneath a stack of meticulously cut out coupons. The coupons had expired back ... [+]
They said home ownership was not a fun club to join. They said home maintenance costs are so high, you just enter into a state of suspended disbelief when you see the bills. The energy audito ... [+]
People always talked about the Big One, and the massive destruction a single earthquake in a specific location would cause. But the tectonic plates are part of a connected system, and thei ... [+]
In less than one full circle of the moon cycle, Cholena Griscrow's father had died of the lung disease and her older brother was arrested and locked up in state juvie for stealing money for rent ... [+]
Eddy Boy was sitting in the park when he came up with the Big Idea. Everyone—the joggers, the nannies pushing the strollers, even the unhoused people sleeping on the benches—was sucking up free ai ... [+]
Tom stood looking across the counter at the teller, a balding man with thick glasses and pinched lips. That face declared Tom was in the wrong. And more, said the face—everything about Tom was ... [+]
I step through the automatic doors of the mall and take the escalator up to the third level. I do this every Wednesday through Sunday; ride the escalator, open shop, work, close shop, and then, back ... [+]
