• One mother’s bravery

    (This article also appeared at The Express) “If you ever decide to start smoking weed, let me know,” my mom beamed. I was sitting on a barstool on one side of the kitchen counter while my mom sat across from

  • Gratuity in the time of corona

    I have this one regular customer who’s been on my mind today. Prior to the coronavirus, prior to the shelter-in-place order, he may or may not have left a tip when he came in to my coffee shop—I, honestly, have

  • A Tuesday with Punch

    My grandfather passed away in December of 2019. He was one month shy of 96. I was named after him, in a way—while he was born Alexander Christopher, and I gladly carry on his middle name, everyone called him Punch.

  • Western evocations

    When I moved to Oklahoma around the age of 10, I was a certifiable Yank in many ways, thrust into this foreign world of horse ranches and pickup trucks. It didn’t take long after we first arrived at some unincorporated

  • A wanton desire for normalcy

    In 2016, I fell ill with a mystery ailment that, to this day, doctors have never been fully able to understand. The primary symptom was jamais vu, which is sort of yin to déjà vu‘s yang—instead of the foreign feeling

  • Poison pill

    I remember very clearly the flood of emotions I felt in the otherwise hazy weeks of November 2016. I was disconnected by so much of what I was experiencing, but the anger—the betrayal—was heavy and thick. I watched the primaries