This Can't Be Broccoli

"Nice scarf, faggot." He yelled it from his car as he drove by me. I was walking to my car after a rehearsal at a local church in downtown Providence, Rhode Island, when I felt the car behind me and heard what he said. Then, he took off. Whenever something like this happens, my first response is always--"Thank God he didn't get out of the car and assault me." My second response is usually anger.  Anger may not even be the right word.  "Fury" may be more appropriate. I looked down the road and saw that he was stopped at a light, and there was another light at the next street. I know downtown well enough to know that those lights go red often and stay that way for awhile.  I realized that the driver probably didn't know that I was so close to my car when he decided to shout at me from his. Without thinking, I jumped into my car, put the key in ignition, and pulled out of the spot. A minute later, I was right behind the other ...

Who would have thought that on the same day Tunisia's government completely dissolves, the Internet would be going crazy over...Libras? Rewind to yesterday when I noticed that a lot of my friends on Facebook were decrying their lost astrological sign. "Oh God!  I'm a Gemini!" "I'm not a Virgo anymore?  Nooo!!!" "I'm going to jump off a bridge unless someone tells me I can still be a Cancer!" Okay, maybe that last one is an exaggeration...but not by much. I had no idea that many of my friends were even interested in astrology.  I know that just about everybody knows what their sign is, but I didn't realize people were so emotionally invested in them. I'm a Cancer, but truth be told, I wouldn't be that upset to be something else.  The problem is I'm not sure what I'd choose to be. To me, astrological signs have always seemed to be a way for us to excuse reccurring flaws in our personality. "I...

As some of you know, most of what I write for the "This Can't Be Broccoli" blog gets cross-posted on Open Salon.com. Every once in awhile, Salon has "Open Call" challenges where they ask for entries relating to a particular topic like "Scary Stories" or "Halloween Costumes." I like participating in the Open Calls, because I'm an Editor's Pick whore (that's when the editors like something you've written and feature it on the main page).  It's easier to get an Editor's Pick if you're responding to an Open Call. Unfortunately, most of the time, I can't participate because the Open Calls are food-related.  They want recipes for the best apple pie, soup, or chocolate chip cookie. I thought about submitting for that last one, but "Go to the supermarket and buy those little squares" didn't seem like it would be met with much enthusiasm. Still, I don't begrudge them for keeping things culina...

When I was in first grade, I had a fantastic teacher named Mrs. McGovern. She was enthusiastic, caring, warm, and an overall great person. But that was not what I remembered about Mrs. McGovern, not really. No, if you had Mrs. McGovern, what you remember is Stanny. Mrs. McGovern's imaginary son. In the interest of full disclosure, and the disinterest in good storytelling, I will tell you that Stanny was made up.  Not only was he made up, but his non-existence was perpetuated by Mrs. McGovern on an almost-daily basis. Then again, I guess when you have an imaginary son you have to really invest in his non-being. Mrs. McGovern would tell story after story about Stanny.  Though he was only two-years-old, Stanny seemed to have already had a lifetime of adventures. I remember stories about Stanny eating spoons, crawling out of his playpen and into a neighbor's yard, and nearly falling into the monkey cage at the zoo. Stanny was a rugrat before there were Rugrats . ...

There are two kinds of blizzards in New England, and I don't know why we bother with one of them. There's the "maybe" blizzard.  The blizzard that gets talked about for two weeks, scares everybody to death, leads to days of preparation, and ends with about half an inch of snow you can wipe off with your bare hands. Then there's the other kind of blizzard--the "definite" blizzard. These are the ones you get two days warning for if you're lucky.  These are the ones that the meteorologists   talk about through smiles because they know this time they're going to be right.  These are the ones that don't scare anybody, because a "definite" blizzard reminds us what we really think of blizzards. They're fun. Oh sure, getting stuck inside for an entire day seems like a recipe for cabin fever and lost productivity.  We try to look on the bright side by saying we'll use the day to clean and read and catch up on everything we...

I remember seeing the class for the first time. My mother ushered me into my third grade classroom where even my teacher had a look on her face that indicated something was wrong. Even at the age of eight, I recognized that look. Then I started counting. 1...2...3... Ohhh nooo... In my third grade class, there were fifteen girls-- --and five boys. That was including me. I knew right away that the next nine months were going to be a fight for survival. It might have been easier if we boys had been able to stick together, but our alliance was a shaky one at best. The other four boys in the class were: Donny, the quiet type, who I think might have grown up to be a serial killer. Sonny, the boisterous dramatic one, who failed to mount a production of Aladdin when a fistfight broke out over who would get to play Apu. Orin, who might have been a little slow...probably was a little slow...you know what?  I'm going to go with saying he was slow. Tommy, the lad...

The day after the shootings in Arizona, there were profiles popping up everywhere of the suspected shooter, Jared Loughner. Each read like a case being presented against him: He doesn't trust the government. He's read Mein Kampf . He behaved oddly in his college classes. The undertone to all these pieces were the same-- The writing was on the wall.  Why didn't somebody do something? What's perhaps more startling is that as I read about Loughner, the first thing I thought was, I know someone just like him. Or at least, I did. In college, I had a few classes with a guy who sounds just like Loughner down to the 9/11 conspiracy theories and the unsettling demeanor. Nobody who knew this guy was unaware of the fact that he was unstable.  Perhaps it's in poor taste to admit it, but a joke my fellow classmates and I had about him was that one day he'd snap and when some reporter asked if we ever saw it coming we'd say "Oh yeah, absolutely....