Your Stories

Lucas Kavner

I moved to New York with nothing in my pockets but dreams. I was going to act or write.  Or play music.  Or something.  In retrospect, maybe I should have had more in my pockets; maybe a fountain pen, a little change, and a map of the MTA lines.  Actually, come to think of it, some money to go along with those…

Anonymous

I’m twenty-two years old, and if you asked me what I want more than anything else in the world, I would tell you honestly, “A baby.” Unless you happened to be my PhD advisor. Or one of my fellow graduates of an elite liberal arts college. Or my parents. Twenty-two year olds—twenty-two year olds who are women of color…

Will Martin

Since graduating nearly 6 months ago from one of these said “prestigious liberal arts colleges,” I have technically only made $10.  Actually, it was 30 Argentinean pesos. Though it may not sound like much, I worked hard for that money.

Nura Suleiman

When I was five, I was convinced that I was going to be the future manager of the Plaza Hotel in New York City.  I would have a dog, just like Eloise, who I assumed would, naturally, be my neighbor. Our dogs would have play dates together in Central Park whilst we dined over crumpets and tea, and gossiped…

Rachel Dunlap

If you happen to be a New Yorker who has undertaken a harried morning commute, the odds are good that you have developed a Commuting Community — the pocketful of strangers you come to recognize and know, but not know, after weeks of putting yourself onto the same car on the same train at the same time…

Pamela Tanner Boll

The last two hours, I’ve spent dawdling at my desk; flipping through children’s clothing catalogues, a file of bills, checking on some orders of furniture and dipping into a biography of Anne Sexton– a housewife, like me with small children, averting madness by writing. And yet, the writing does not help her take care of…

Liz Somes

My dad was a trial attorney at first. It challenged him, and he liked it, but after a few years of stressful 80-hour workweeks, a cushy corporate attorneyship began to look really appealing. In 1976, he abandoned the courtroom for a job he ended up hating for 30 years.To compensate, he moonlighted as a stock trader…

“Yoko”

Somewhere in the midst of my morning hate and anxiety, walking on snowy Arbat, I have decided that I will write a book before I’m 25. And since I just turned 24 yesterday, here I am, sitting in front of four gigantic monitors in the centre of Moscow, writing this.  I celebrated the 24th year of furious nothingness…

Lauren Westerfield

Back in November, I showed up every morning at the law office where I worked, made a few copies… and then stole away to my office and surreptitiously waxed poetic about the interactive community that would, I hoped, become synonymous with the Lattice Group.  In my mind,…

Jack Moxon

As a member of a generation characterized by a deluge of competing information, skepticism, doubt, cynicism, and moral confusion, I have always taken great comfort in knowing that there was always a light in the darkness, a proverbial voice crying out in the wilderness: that of the late Rick James. If your first…

Elizabeth Geballe

There was a moment this summer when I’d finally worked up the courage to print my resume, walk it down to my neighborhood bookstore, and offer it to the man at the counter.  As I was about to leave, resume in hand, I made a quick but sincere confession to my mother: “I’m scared.”…

Ken Chitwood

There is nothing better than getting up early in the morning, driving out through the countryside, popping on a pair of gum boots, and getting to work on the farm with cows, pigs, and sheep. I have been blessed with the ability to do this about once a week since arriving in New Zealand five months ago…

Sarah Heyward

The door. This is where we enter in the morning, having left behind our lovers in their beds, our husbands and wives, our sick children, our aging parents, our stoned roommates, and our one night stands.  This is where we leave in the evening, those last fifteen minutes before six o’clock moving…

Filip Odqvist

While men might fear hiring a woman, a lot of us fear even more the prospect of getting hired by a woman. The hesitation to hire might bear some perceived rational reasoning including the potential “loss” of an employee should the woman become pregnant. All the time, effort, and (most importantly) money put in…

Sam G. Jeatz

I don’t like talking about Investment Banking.  It’s hard to describe this job without sounding engrossed in money – which is to say, without sounding like a complete ass.  And my ability to opine eloquently and subjectively on my job is complicated by the fact that I find it hard to talk about my day-to-day routine…

Aysegul Savas

It is almost two months since I moved in with my boyfriend in California. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I’m still unemployed. I am a recent college graduate from Turkey whose permit to stay in the country started two months ago. My family wanted me in New York with my brother, rather than in…

Jordan Nassar

When I traveled to Tokyo for my semester abroad, I didn’t think that I’d be sipping on cocktails at a club while watching some American or European brand of DJ, each friend around me dressed crazier than the next, bumping and grinding and chain-smoking cigarettes. Looking around, I realized that Tokyo, albeit…

James Lucas

Every hour the doormen switch from the front door to the back gate, where there are fewer IDs to check. Most patrons come in through the front on Shattuck while the waiters, runners, and bartenders go for their cigarette breaks out on the back alley of Allston. The Jupiter’s employees neurotically inhale coffin…