Journal
Articles
Lunch at the dream house
There were columns. It was white. Palatial. ‘Just smile and nod,’ Paul said, as he drove towards the fountain where a replica of Michelangelo’s Bacchus stood in all his glory.
The long supper
Nadia herself was unremarkable. She spoke little and staked little claim. She ate in moderation (always in private). She exercised moderately (always indoors). Books were the exception; those, she binged.
The party for Crabs
As she lists the night’s specials, Claire attempts to figure out the party’s dynamic. Shared complexions make the elegant woman the little girl’s mother, surely. It’s the women’s relationship she can’t figure out. University friends? Distant cousins? Their conversation seems too polite for either. Unnatural.
Quinoa nation
We don’t stock Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook. I know this because Amanda thinks Gwyneth Paltrow is goofy, despite Amanda and Gwyneth Paltrow being the same person. Our customers are Gwyneth Paltrow’s target demographic. If Gwyneth Paltrow wrote a novel our book club would literally devour it.
Old stars
I found Archie by the shallow end wearing a short terry-towelling robe open to the waist. Time and tide had left him shipwrecked and bloated, but you could still recognise him from the pictures on his album covers: same dark pouf and ducktail and duotone tan, only now he got his colour from a bottle and his hair from a can. He’d been drinking gin and tonic since happy hour started, brought out by an over-attentive waitress.
The supper
where Sacrificer and Sacrificee, still fragrant with the Blood of Morning and Harvest, gather by twisted Beak and crooked Hand
Flowers and fruit
This arrangement like any other, each the simulacrum of before.
Languages
the sky keeps no secret but a rainbow
A recipe for Rote Grütze
I imagine you as a young woman here in this foreign place trying to learn a language your children brought home from school.
Between different worlds
Antarctica offers windows into many different worlds...
Where borders break down
WHEN EXPLAINING MY Antarctic research to new acquaintances, at a dinner party or a barbeque, I can usually predict...
Cold currents
WHEN ROBERT FALCON Scott reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, he immediately knew he had been beaten....
