It was the last day of clinical exams for my brother. He was in class to become a certified nursing assistant, a small step in his ongoing journey to becoming a doctor. His white woman teacher stopped him. “Before you leave I just want to tell you something, so when you get a few minutes…
We called him Shorty. He was 5’5” on his best day, and his nickname was so well-worn that I never asked him what his birth name was. He wore a forest green jacket with two large red and white triangles that stretched out from the back, brown pants and a baseball cap. We talked here…
Before you can be good at writing, you have to be bad at writing. This story is an excellent example of me being bad at writing, and having a great time while doing it. Below the story are the comments I received from the judge of the contest I submitted this story to. Practice, criticism and…
It’s 1:59 AM. There are police cars outside of my apartment again. Their blue and red light is splashing in from beneath the blinds as my girlfriend sleeps in the room. I don’t know if she heard the six gunshots forty minutes earlier. She sleeps with earplugs to block out my monstrous snoring, so perhaps…
I. One thing Sarah hates about Todd is that he’s always late. She’s been sitting at McKinney’s for half an hour. She’s watching a basketball game between Duke and Kentucky, not quite sure which team is which. A man with a neatly trimmed goatee and too much Calvin Klein is trying to explain the intricacies…
Gene Glotzer and I started this blog almost a year ago. In our friendly discussions, we often found that our opinions on many topics didn’t fit into the traditional political and social categories, and we assumed that most other people’s don’t either. We began Nutmegger Daily as a way to share our writing with an…
I was listening to the Radiolab podcast yesterday, and they were discussing the history of presidential authority regarding the use of nuclear weapons (specifically, whether there was any check on the President’s authority to order a nuclear strike). Harry Truman had no idea about the atomic bomb until he became President, and the authority to…
I had to get slightly buzzed at a pub with a friend I’ve known since elementary school to finally feel comfortable enough to say out loud what I’ve been thinking recently: “Identity politics is bullshit.” Even then I half-whispered it, despite being in a room full of people who were too drunk to care. In…
Yes, you. Right now. Stop reading this and write something. Words connect us across time and space, class and race, culture and gender. I can’t talk to Frederick Douglass because he’s dead. I can’t visit Pompeii because it was destroyed. I can’t see a dodo bird because they’re extinct. But I can read about all…
Today, my niece Khalia was born. She came into our world at a healthy nine pounds, five ounces. She is my brother’s first child, and my first niece or nephew. I’m surprised by how excited I am at the prospect of being an uncle. I love kids- babies and children and even teenagers. I like talking…
