So, You Joined a Sorority
So, You Joined a Sorority

Derby Days is the first convergence of Greek life on campus during the fall semester. It is your introduction to the Greek life competition, and it must be taken seriously. At dinner, some of the girls who will be participating in the lip sync competition tonight start to arrive. Someone tells you that they will be lip-syncing to some rap song. You can’t help but laugh because you can only imagine how funny it will be to watch a group of skinny white girl’s rap. You’ve just finished clearing your plate when you exit the kitchen and see something you’ve only ever seen in pictures. You see Sister S, in full blackface. Sister S is wearing baggy blue jeans, a wife-beater, an oversized button-down tied around her waist, a bandana wrapped around her head, and chunky skater sneakers. You don’t realize that you’ve been frozen staring at her until she comes up to you.

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True StoriesKristina Buschcollege, racism, friendship, sororityComment
If You Relate to These Five Albums by the Mountain Goats, You Might Want to Consider Therapy
If You Relate to These Five Albums by the Mountain Goats, You Might Want to Consider Therapy

I’m losing my virginity to the Hamilton soundtrack. We’re in a college dorm room in North Carolina and he accidentally hits my head on the headboard in his rush to undress me. We don’t yet know that I’m not going to leave the dorm room for nearly three months after he leaves; what we do know is that the music is awful to fuck to. He gets up and reaches for his phone, one hand still on my chest, and scrolls Spotify until he finds a certain playlist. “This is better,” he tells me with a grin as the warm buzz of a Panasonic boombox floods the room. The rhythm is better, for sure, but I find the lyrics interesting enough that I get distracted and ask him to turn it up. “I thought you’d like it,” he says. He knows how important music is to me, and he tells me the name of the singer as the man and his guitar continue to wail: John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats. This is the first time I’ve listened to the singer-songwriter for more than a few passing seconds. I can’t guess my relationship with John and his music will far outlast my relationship with this boy.

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Kristina Busch Comment
About the Dog and Me
About the Dog and Me

The dog is different now. He has developed a subtle yet more articulate language of long gazes and soft moans. Maybe not just expressions of pain but also the frustrating inability to fully express himself. These are of course, just my interpretations and perhaps too self-reflective. “What is it, buddy?” I ask him, “What is it?” It’s cancer and it is, as they say, aggressive.

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True StoriesKristina Buschdog, pets, grief, memoriesComment
If Walls Could Talk
If Walls Could Talk

You and I became acquainted nearly thirteen years ago. It wasn’t love at first sight. In fact, I was initially after another one just down the street. But that one had too many problems and I didn’t want such a big project. I noticed you on the same day that I said no to the other one, and so I came to see you. You were cute, in solid condition. Very old-school but nothing that a little modern touch couldn’t fix. I had been casually looking for a home for several months. I and my now ex-husband, that is. This felt a little different and we really needed something positive to look forward to. Something of a distraction, maybe.

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True StoriesKristina Buschreflection, home, relationships, family Comments
Trust
Trust

When I was eight years old, many decades ago now, I learned there were different kinds of dirty. We were new to the mountains, my family and I, renting a cabin at a small, rustic resort where the ghost town of Bakerville used to be, near Loveland Pass. Down the creek a ways, lived an old man we called Pops. At least we thought of him as old, with his pudgy frame, poorly shaved face, saggy skin, and well-worn clothes.

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Diya Mehtamemories, Childhood, sexual assaultComment
Tears
Tears

Every Thanksgiving and Christmas we haul the extra table up from the basement: a cheap white pine table, the varnish yellow now, that we used in the kitchen until eventually it became too embarrassing. When we carry it upstairs, we do it in pieces, and once it's in the dining room the tabletop gets flipped over and lowered to the floor so someone--usually my husband or my son Sam--can attach the legs. As one of them works with screws and Allen wrenches, I read the legends inscribed by our kids on the underside of the table when they were little; the one we see first, in large red letters, is "Boo, Sam sucks a lot, by Nick."

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Diya Mehtagrief, suicide, Motherhood Comments
Lithromancer
Lithromancer

I.

It wasn’t cool to like the Backstreet Boys while attending high school in the late 1990s, and this may still be true today.

But I wasn’t cool. I didn’t care to get jiggy with it or weep to “Candle in the Wind.” The odes to drugs from Third Eye Blind and Marcy Playground were boring. I didn’t give any real shits about Lilith Fair’s tepid lineup, though I still went, quietly rolling my eyes through “Adia” by Sarah McLaughlin.

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True StoriesJulia NusbaumLGBTQIA, music, sexuality, identity Comment
Bedside Manner
Bedside Manner

We’re a few hours in when something starts to go wrong with the epidural. Not all at once, but a creeping awareness of sensation starts to tug at my attention as I lie there and look at the trees outside, and read, and make small talk with my husband.

At first, I ignore it. But then I start to get nervous.

“I can wiggle my left toes,” I say, not really to anyone. Observationally.

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True StoriesKristina Buschpregnancy, health, teacher, motherhoodComment
Tight Grip
Tight Grip

The amygdala assigns emotional significance to clutter I can’t throw away. To souvenirs and books throughout our house. To clawhammers, backpacks, yard signs we hang on pegboards. To ordinary places we visit again and again. This precious tiny thing deep inside my head also helps form shiny new memories. I want to hold on to my amygdala for a long time. Keep it healthy and functioning. Feed it. Maintain it. That sort of thing.

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True StoriesKristina Buschrelationships, love, reflection Comment
Panda and Tiger
Panda and Tiger

Maybe the woman holding the child was way too close to the edge of the pier. Way too close for way too long. Maybe that is what the shopkeeper told the Vancouver police when she phoned in her response to the Amber Alert. Maybe the ginger-haired artist who owned the Rare Button Shoppe—herself the mother of a curly-headed toddler—feared for the safety of the child on the pier.

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True StoriesKristina Buschfamily, motherhood, trauma Comments
If in the Convent You’d Found a Friend
If in the Convent You’d Found a Friend

Maybe you saw her serving champagne on a one-for-you, one-for-me basis at a big nun party, shooting corks for children to catch. Later, you’d bond that one summer week watching science fiction movies in the novitiate basement. You’d be thrilled when she came to live in your same convent. It would make sense, the life-sized poster of Spock in her bedroom, just down the hall from yours.

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True StoriesKristina Buschfriendship, religion, relationships Comments
The Shattering of Mother
The Shattering of Mother

She cracked open one late afternoon. Just like a porcelain doll falling off a shelf. Like the dolls she collected, displayed, and cherished. She shattered in her mind and exploded on to our beings. Shards of her screaming hit our small ears and pierced our hearts. We were her children. She was our mother and then she was not.

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Selena RaygozaComment
Poetry in a Second Language: Why I Can't Fully Decolonize My Life
Poetry in a Second Language: Why I Can't Fully Decolonize My Life

Somewhere in a cardboard box in our basement lies a cassette tape of me at three years old being coaxed by my mother to sing into a tape recorder. “Canta,” she says.” I must be fascinated by the turning cassette reels, because I ignore her request and say, “Está andando.” “Si, está andando. Canta.” A few seconds pass during which I am either reaching for buttons or fiddling with the tape case, because my mother starts to get mildly frustrated.

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Diya Mehtadecolonization, immigrant, cultureComment
Dear Rapist
Dear Rapist

Do you even remember me? Or was I nothing to you, a little conquest, a trifling diversion that for one brief evening made you feel powerful? Do you know how hard it has been for me to understand what happened that night? To remember how naïve I was, even at twenty-five, and not feel ashamed? To stop blaming myself for getting drunk on a few cups of sake, and for being unable to shove your six-foot-plus body off of me? Did you plan it, or was it merely a crime of opportunity, your secret safe because I was in town for only a few days?

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Diya Mehtasexual violence, rape, pro-choice, abortion Comments
At The Grocery Store Alone, I Think About Becoming A Dead Girl
At The Grocery Store Alone, I Think About Becoming A Dead Girl

I think about becoming a dead girl, not because I want to be one, but because of how possible it is for me, out in public, to become one. I’ve read the news, the stories, watched the true crime documentaries and listened to the podcasts. In Youtube videos, a beautiful woman applies makeup while detailing another’s gruesome murder. I walk through the aisles of the store, filling my cart and avoiding eye contact with men I don’t know, wondering how many of their mouths have watered at the thought of wringing my neck.

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Diya MehtaDeath, sexual violence, violenceComment
Window to the Soul
Window to the Soul

I winced, not because it was time, but because the nurse had used my full name, a name only my mom still called me. As the nurse announced it I briefly felt as though I was a teenager being called to wash dishes or explain a grade on my report card. But my mom was miles away now, not there to micromanage me as I made a big decision for myself.

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Diya Mehtachoice, iud, Motherhood, sex Comment
Baring Myself at the Hammam
Baring Myself at the Hammam

Years ago when I went to a hammam in Istanbul I didn’t bring a bathing suit. Thinking I was being culturally sensitive or some anthro major nonsense, I figured we would go naked. But the ladies at the public bath the Turkish woman who was marrying my American friend took us to were all wearing bikinis or one pieces. I spent the afternoon cringing in my white granny underwear, a towel awkwardly draped over my chest.

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Diya Mehtabreast cancer, cancer, Strong womenComment
Tenure
Tenure

“Do you work?” the man prompts as he pushes his little girl in the swing adjacent to my son, completely oblivious to my visceral reaction.

The swing set yells my fury while I think of a response. Squeal, squeal! My sleep-deprived brain is now fully awake.

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Selena RaygozaComment