Author: the jodi

In a life where nothing is certain, I am an anchor. I’d envisioned lots problems, becoming one half of conjoined twins–attached at the heart–wasn’t one of them. She’s losing/has lost the ability to think of things she’d like to do without prompting. Everything you thinks of as your life up to this moment? Imagine that, but gone.

There is a very short list of things I avoid with Big Edie– they just lead to pointless, never-ending, no-one-is-happy circles. God. and Fred. Everything else is fair game.

Everyone needs something to live for. My mother lives for the day she will die. The innate right to choose your own time and method of death is a part of who we were as a family, one of the few things all three of us agreed on.

After Big Edie dies, there’s nothing to stop me from running away. I use “running” rather loosely. Financially speaking, I’ll live pretty comfortably once my mother has passed. Not lavishly, but when she leaves the planet, I can leave New York. Comfortable turns into slightly lavish outside the confines of the five boroughs.

I’d lived alone—and happy—for forty years. Then,in July 2018, my mother moved in. We knew there’d be an adjustment period, but figured any friction would come from 60 years of mother/daughter emotional baggage having to share a single bathroom. That was the easy stuff.

This is about being a caregiver when you never even planned on children. On said child being your 89-year-old mother. About two old ladies & five cats. This is some Grey Gardens 11372 caregiver shit.

I sniffed my mother’s armpit. Last March, after the fall that fractured her L1 vertebrae…

3 naked ladies talk about their view from the stages and laps of the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s and today. 
ESSENCE REVEALED, The Bubbling Brown Sugar of Burlesque, with dual degrees from a prestigious university, found dancing in upscale gentlemen’s clubs from New York to Vegas enabled her to stave off “starving artistdom”.

Kicked out of a secret Facebook group for questioning its policies.

Crazy was on my morning commute. This is New York, so that’s not unusual. Doesn’t…

On straddling the rip in the time/space continuum. Drinking, driving, smoking, and speeding. Some nights are just made for that, no matter how fast you’ve driven, how long, or how far you’ve come.

I’ve been a vegetarian, a vegan, a pescatarian, and a locavore. For years I was off beef, but ate poultry. But, the more I knew the less I would eat, until my next “revelation.”

I spent a good part of dinner talking about a person who irritated me, who…

I say I want to live in a small town. No, he says, you don’t….

Every day I see the rights and lives and safety of women and people of color disregarded and crushed by white men in uniforms and white men of influence and white men with academic *futures*

Fifteen years ago I was on the phone when he said, “Hold on, I think the boiler just exploded,” and put the phone down. After a few moments, “I gotta go. There’s body parts and plane parts all over. I gotta go.” He worked at the Marriott Hotel opposite the World Trade Center and it was early and the story hadn’t hit the news yet.

Have you ever wondered “What’s the deal with literary conferences and book festivals? Why should I bother?” Why go to literary conferences when you can read and drink from the comfort of your own home? Here’s why.

Me & my words. Literary leaps of faith across the Hudson, the country & the international dateline.

Previously published: BUST Magazine Spring/Summer 1996 (as Scarlett Fever) He pushes me inside a yellow…

Previously published: Johns, Marks, Tricks & Chickenhawks (Soft Skull Press, 2013); Best American Erotica, 1995 (Touchstone Book…

Originally published as “Lele” in Hos, Hookers, Callgirls and Rentboys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love,…

Menopause was the best thing that could have happened to me. The vodka haze & hormone fog lifted, and if I wasn’t that hyper-sexual being, I’d have to redefine myself. (Previously published, October 2015, O, The Oprah Magazine)

Myra, turning to Sylvia: Sugar?
translation: You want the boy should put sugar in your tea?

what’s the sound of two edies talking? Big Edie: It wasn’t such a good day….