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The Russian

January 11, 2026
Romance
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When Anna and I matched, the app still felt like something people were wary of, so I gave her my full name and even my license plate number. It felt like the normal precaution you took when you were about to meet a stranger from the internet. She got in my car and the connection was immediate. She was a Russian student with a heavy accent, glasses, blond hair, a slightly awkward posture, and a directness that bypassed every American social rule I had ever learned. Nothing about her felt shaped by trying to be a certain type of woman. That made it easier to relax around her than I had ever experienced.

Our first dates were straightforward. Bars, restaurants, the usual places people chose without imagination. The hostess always seated us in the predictable part of the dining room where early Tinder couples were clustered together, all of them stiff and polite and trying too hard. We would sit there watching the slow collapses around us while our conversations never stalled. There was something steady between us from the beginning. She laughed easily. She asked simple questions. She didn’t act like she was auditioning for anything. I didn’t either.

After a few dates she came to my apartment. I had assumed she would look around and quietly recalibrate her interest downward. The place looked like it belonged to someone still in the process of becoming an adult. But she walked in and said she liked it. She didn’t mean she liked me despite the apartment. She liked the apartment. She said she wanted to live that way. Her tone never shifted to suggest she was trying to flatter me or make a point. She spoke in straightforward observations, always. I smoked Parliament Lights then. A week or two later she started smoking them too, not as a gesture or a flirtation, but as if it was simply the logical next step.

She needed to move apartments and I volunteered to help. Her place barely had anything in it. No mattress, no packed boxes, no evidence that she had prepared. I moved her things to the car and she worked beside me without apology or explanation. She didn’t thank me. It didn’t register as rude. It felt like she assumed I already understood the situation and didn’t need the interaction padded with ceremony. I found it refreshing. There was nothing performative between us.

The night it ended didn’t feel like a turning point until the very last minutes of it. I brought a bottle of wine because at that time I brought alcohol to every interaction. Earlier in the evening she had asked why I did that. I didn’t give her a real answer. She then told me stories about Russia, showed me photos of her hometown, played music she grew up with. We had sex. Everything about the night felt warm and steady. There was nothing tense or unsettled. When we were getting ready for bed, she said, in the same tone she used for everything else, “You’re only into me because you have no other options.” I didn’t register it at first. I asked her what she meant. She repeated it, worded more plainly, but with the same neutral delivery.

I didn’t argue. I didn’t explain anything. I didn’t feel insulted in the traditional sense. It was just true. The wine was still sitting on her table, untouched. I picked it up because it was mine. I walked out. She didn’t protest or ask for clarification. The whole thing ended in silence.

Years later, at thirty, I typed her name into Facebook out of nowhere. Her profile hadn’t changed since the last time I’d seen it. Same photos, same posts, same faint trace of a life that had never fully transitioned into adulthood. I sent her a message explaining why I had moved back to Seattle, mentioned the bipolar episode, and gave a brief account of what had happened to me. She didn’t respond. That night I removed her from my friends list. The next day she liked a picture of my cat on Instagram. It wasn’t a re-opening of anything. It was a small sign that she had noticed the change and that was the extent of it.

My Girlfriend for Two Days

October 19, 2025
Romance
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I was deep in the college party and bar scene when Sabrina came front and center. Everyone knew everyone, or pretended to. Sabrina had been an ancillary figure in our group, always there at the edges, bumming cigarettes on the porch, but suddenly she was throwing herself at me with an intensity that felt both flattering and overwhelming.

We’d end up on barstools that wobbled, her knee pressed against mine while she leaned in close enough that I could smell her perfume mixing with whiskey. The way she looked at me felt like I was being selected, pulled from the crowd into some private frequency. In retrospect, she was attracted to my social role and image in that world. I was part of her extended friend group, had the same habits, and moved in the same circles.

It escalated to official dating status in a matter of days. We were socially aligned, attractive to each other, sexually compatible. It felt good, or at least it felt like it should feel good.

But I suffered from depression and anxiety that would come in unpredictable waves. One evening we were sitting on the stoop smoking cigarettes; the air was thick and still. I don’t remember what led to it, but I admitted I sometimes had crippling anxiety.

The moment I said it, her face changed. Not gradually, instant – like a door slamming. Her mouth twisted into something between disgust and confusion. “Okay…” she said, drawing out the word with such contempt that I can still hear the exact pitch of it. Then she stood up, dropped her cigarette, and left.

I don’t remember the exact breakup conversation, but that was functionally it.

She was still around constantly, though, and the reality of the bomb I’d dodged quickly surfaced. I watched her throw herself at every guy in our group with the same aggressive focus she’d used on me. The same lean-in at the bar, the same intensity that had felt flattering when it was aimed at me. Everyone saw it. Everybody resisted.

One time she was over when some guy approached the front stoop. He didn’t knock, didn’t hesitate, just walked up and punched someone in our group square in the face. No words, no warning. We all lost our shit. At some point during the chaos, he dropped a screwdriver on the ground, a weapon he’d been carrying. I watched Sabrina quietly pick it up and slip it into her purse, like she was collecting something that belonged to her.

I realized then she’d had him come over to meet her. He wasn’t random, he was hers. It revealed everything about her taste in men.

Cordy

September 21, 2025
Addiction, Work
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In college I took whatever work paid. I repaired laptops, installed software, convinced elderly clients that the internet would not eat them. One of those clients was Cordy. He was a psychologist by training and a hobby photographer by habit. He and his wife Cindy lived on a property in Skagit County in a house he had drawn and built himself. It was the kind of place that collects things: carved masks from Indonesia, a faded map with thumbtack holes, framed Polaroids stacked like proof that the world was larger than my dorm room.

Cordy spoke like someone who had learned how to listen. He trusted simple pleasures. He trusted music, and he trusted the slow work of developing a photograph. He trusted people enough to let them be imperfect. I liked him because he was generous and because he made generosity look ordinary. Cindy had the same ease. Together they were warm in the way people are who have not given up on being tender.

I became their tech person. I showed up once or twice a month and sat at their kitchen table while Cordy fed images into his Mac that I had never used before. I taught him how to organize folders and back up drives and which buttons did which little useful things. The work was small and practical and it kept me connected in a way the campus job could not. It felt like belonging that did not demand performance. I liked going out there.

One afternoon Cindy asked me to do something that felt bigger than a tech job. She wanted a birthday poster for Cordy. She described an old western wanted poster except instead of criminal charges it would be praise. Wanted: More Men Like Cordy. A list of virtues where crimes should be. She imagined it pinned by his closet light so he would see it often. She did not ask for perfection. She asked for tenderness disguised as humor. I am not a designer. I made the poster anyway. The typography was clumsy. The margins did not align. The bullets were awkward. It was amateur hour and it still landed. Cindy loved it. Cordy loved it. Later he tacked it inside his closet where morning light might catch the paper and remind him he was seen.

Then I started buying Adderall from people who did not ask questions. Prescriptions were a gate I could not be bothered with. Street supply was easier. The pills were small and steady and they made it possible to stay up and feel useful. I told myself I was optimizing. It made everything efficient. It made me feel sharp in a way that felt like survival. But survival became excess. I did not measure my intake. My supplier cut me off when I looked like I was breaking. Mercy and refusal come in the same breath from people who know when a person is losing the map. My dealer stopped too.

Withdrawal is a slow erasure. Days become a fog of wanting. I lay in bed and practiced dying. I wrote mental scripts in which everything ended cleanly. The body has a brutal way of teaching you the boundary between useful pain and ruin. I slept badly. I pressed my face into the pillow and wondered how to keep the world far enough away that it would not hurt me.

During those weeks Cordy sent an email. His project was finished. He was showing the work in a downtown gallery, practically in my neighborhood. He extended the exhibit and sent another note. He wanted to celebrate. The messages had the patient tone of someone who expected you to be there. They were invitations wrapped in the trust of friendship.

I did not go. I imagined walking into the gallery and listening to polite people talk about exposure and frame sizes and I imagined my hands shaking. I imagined all the small signs that would reveal I was falling apart, and I chose not to let anyone see the ruin. So I stayed in bed.

Once the withdrawal had subsided somewhat, I called him and the line dropped. I called again and the phone went to voicemail. Just a missed call and then silence.

That was the end. There are things you cannot fix after you let them go. I think now about the poster inside a closet. I imagine Cordy seeing it each morning and thinking the world was kinder than it can be. I imagine how small acts of attention matter.

I never told them how grateful I was. I never explained why I could not come. They would have understood. When I think of Cordy it is with the weight of that unreturned invitation and the memory of a man who pinned a piece of paper to his closet.

The Austin Weekend

September 7, 2025
Romance, Work
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In 2020 at a major tech company, I met someone who changed everything in the span of about six weeks.

We were both remote recruiters on the same team. The chemistry was instant and relentless. We would have two conversations running simultaneously, one over Slack for work and another over text for everything else. Hours would disappear into these layered discussions about recruiting, life, random observations, whatever. It was limitless.

I remember scrolling through her Instagram photos for the first time when I discovered she was a lesbian. I guess the math didn’t work out for me, after all. Or so I thought.

After several more weeks of constant texting, she asked me something unusual.

“Would you ever date me?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t even think about my reply. It was simply true, and I just said it. I felt no fear or vulnerability, no risk of rejection. She was unavailable to me; therefore, this must be some kind of hypothetical, intellectual exercise.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

That’s approximately how it started.

We immediately went into planning & logistics. Eventually I would relocate to Austin. For now, I would come to visit in four weeks. If we could keep the intensity for that long, we’d have a strong foundation.

We maintained it with plenty to spare. The month flew by with the same dual-conversation energy. I booked the flight.

Austin exceeded every expectation. The chemistry translated perfectly to in-person interaction. We talked the same way face-to-face as we had through screens. The physical connection worked. We had sex and it was excellent. Everything about the weekend was clicking exactly as we’d hoped.

Then I did something incredibly dumb.

Before heading out the second day, I took a small hit from my weed vape. She took one too, in solidarity. It seemed harmless. I’ve done this thousands of times in my life. Here we had a tiny, shared moment before exploring the city.

Except, we both got ridiculously high.

I became weird and uncoordinated. She got paranoid and uncomfortable. What should have been a fun day out turned into an awkward nightmare where we were both trapped inside altered versions of ourselves.

When we got back to the hotel room, she quietly collected her things and left. I bought a ticket home that night.

It was over like that.

The smallest possible miscalculation at the worst possible moment. Everything that mattered had worked perfectly; the emotional connection, the physical compatibility, the practical logistics.

Six weeks of building something rare, a perfect weekend confirming it was real, then thirty minutes of being the wrong versions of ourselves when first impressions were everything.

Thirty minutes that undid everything we’d built and everything we could have been.

The Craigslist Job

September 1, 2025
Work
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I don’t remember the ad, just the phone call. A dog was barking in the background. Her voice cut through the noise. “Yes, when can you come in?” she asked, already moving on to the next thing. She didn’t need to see my resume.

That moment set the tone for everything that followed.

Her house was chaos. Papers everywhere, dogs barking, phone always ringing. If you could handle it, you could work there.

My first job was reposting the ad and scheduling interviews with other candidates. But at the end of that first day, she said, “When can you come tomorrow?” And the next day it was the same. It wasn’t until the first year passed that it was understood I got the job. She didn’t particularly like me, but she couldn’t find anyone better than me.

At first, I was just helping, like printing things, carrying things, assembling things. But eventually I had become her secretary, marketing department, and professional voice.

What I learned was how to sound professional when you had no idea what you were doing. How to write emails that sounded like they came from someone who knew things, when really I was just mimicking patterns I’d seen online. Sandy would hand me tasks that required experience I didn’t have.

She sold therapy certifications. Expensive ones, $3,000 for a weekend workshop that would supposedly teach you her proprietary method. My job was finding people to buy them. I’d harvest email addresses from her mailing lists and send them copy about “life-changing breakthrough techniques” and “limited-time certification opportunities.”

The people who emailed back sounded desperate. They wanted to know about whether this would actually let them practice therapy. I learned to deflect those questions. To focus on the transformation they’d experience, the tools they’d gain, the community they’d join.

Sandy believed in what she was selling, which made it worse somehow. She wasn’t a scammer because she genuinely thought her method worked. But she was underwater financially and couldn’t stop pushing. Every interaction became a sales opportunity. Every conversation ended with a pitch.

I stayed because I needed the work. I stayed because the chaos felt familiar. And I stayed because, despite everything, I was learning. Not from her, she had nothing to teach me about professionalism or ethics or how to run a business. But I was learning from the necessity of filling gaps she couldn’t see. From having to sound competent when I felt like a fraud. From watching what happened when passion wasn’t backed by substance.

She never made me prove I was useful. She just handed me something and trusted that I’d figure it out. For that, despite everything else, I am grateful to her.

The Linen Closet

August 24, 2025
Cat
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Luna vanished the day the contractors came.

The front door had been left open. Not for long, maybe a minute, just long enough. She wasn’t used to the noise, wasn’t used to the outdoors, and in that moment of panic, she must’ve bolted. That was the story. It made sense. There was no sign of her inside the house. I assumed the worst, because it looked like the worst. And once you decide something like that, it calcifies.

I canvassed the neighborhood with printed flyers. I walked the streets calling her name. I left food out and knocked on doors. I was methodical. I left no stone unturned, outside.

I never opened the linen closet.

Instead, I hired a pet detective. A real one with tracking dogs, cameras, cages, all of it. They followed her scent through the neighborhood and stopped a few blocks away. It was high alert; it felt promising. A woman nearby said a new black cat had been showing up at her house. The timing lined up. We gave her the trap and she agreed to monitor it.

But then it got worse.

A man contacted me. Said he’d found a black cat that looked like Luna a few blocks from my house. He sent a blurry photo, just enough to stir hope, not enough to confirm anything. He said he’d bring her to me, but needed gas money first. It was a scam. I knew it. But I was desperate and exhausted. I had handed him a flyer myself. Spoken to him in person. He was supposed to be one of the good guys.

I paid him. He asked for more. I blocked him.

A week passed with nothing happening, no trap results or footage. Just silence. My cat was gone. My hope was gone. I felt sick every time I opened the front door.

And then, for no reason I can name, I opened the linen closet.

She was in there. Alive and calm, just curled behind the towels.

She blinked at me, then walked to the litter box, and nuzzled Roy. Nothing about her behavior suggested trauma. She had been locked in that closet for a week, and she was fine.

I had never looked there. Not once. Because I knew she had gone outside. I’d watched the door hang open. I’d played the story in my head. It made so much sense that I didn’t question it. I never even noticed the closet was closed.

And because of that, because I knew she was outside, I gave a flyer to the man who would scam me. I searched the whole neighborhood. I hired a tracker. I cried. I barely ate. And I left my cat in the closet.

Winston the Crow

July 24, 2015
Uncategorized
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In my building’s courtyard, just over a week ago, I came aware of this constant nagging/cawing, and saw it was coming from a young, downy crow hanging low under a covering all alone.

This happens every year, May to July, when parents nudge their baby out of the nest – though continue to monitor them nearby, and from afar, to teach them how to fly and other life skills.

So I witnessed, from the first day, when Winston – as he has been named – was first shoved from the nest. A bizarre, extremely intimate moment in a living thing’s life.

For the first few days he was severely depressed. Literally sitting motionless with his head poked into a bush, hind sticking out, for hours. And other ways of very obviously moping. Though his parents still stuck around, watching from strategic places, cleverly. Reminding me to fuck off if I got too close unawares.

It becomes a whole thing, Winston, always looking out for him. Or listening – his distinct voice, pouring out a constant stream of consciousness. Despair, curiosity, or snark – all distinct emotions. Funny how some animals are so vocal, to no one in particular, to everyone. Or for people, their constant yabber in all varying ways.

It’s something I look forward to. A little peek at the intimacies of an amazingly familiar being. The opportunity to follow the incredibly human thoughts of a non-human, in his constant chatter. In making eye contact and knowing he’s looking back, unglazed.

He’s rapidly growing up, but for his size still has messy, tufts of a downy belly.

Now he can fly, but that’s a skill to be honed. Not quite to the smooth, subtle, regal poise with which we’re so accustomed, how crows tend to fade in the background.

But now I’m so aware of them, always looking to see if it’s Winston. I notice them everywhere, I can see now they’re always fussing about something real, even if it’s above my head. As I ride by on the bus I see them leering down from power lines, sentinels, every one of them is watching me, specifically, as I go by. Realizing that they actually are.

This morning it’s really quiet on my way in to work. In the silence are only my own private thoughts filling the void.  Which are, incidentally, the same as Winston’s, having been me telling his story all along.

I detour to my spot, even though it rained a bit earlier; but everything’s mostly dry by now. Unfortunately someone left a bag of dog shit right there, which is inevitable given the courtyard doubles as a dog-shitting spot. But there’s enough space in my nook that it shouldn’t interfere.

I get close and I see it’s not what I thought afterall, rather it’s the wet, wilted, downy, lifeless tufts of Winston’s belly who had passed some time, somehow in the night. I had to leave, and his body is soon cleaned up after.

I wish there was more to say, but that’s the end to the story of Winston the Crow.