"Carpe Diem". Seize the day. Ellie Peyton traced the curly letters tattooed into her flesh and smiled. Her forearm was still puckered and pink from the needle, but the pain had receded and was now nothing more than a dull, prickling itch. Pulling down her sleeve she stepped off the curb and crossed the street in the direction of a little cafe just south of the tattoo parlor. She was meeting her friend Kate there for brunch. A car nearly mowed her down as she scuttled across the road in her heels, but Ellie wasn't one to get a chuckle from the irony. She just flicked the driver her middle finger and her most voracious smile when he blasted his car horn at her. A tiny bell above the door dinged as she entered the cafe. It was an older, very worn place, with red-check table cloths, little canisters of brown sugar and an atmosphere alive with springy touches of jazz. Ellie went up to the counter and stirred around the contents of her handbag. Her shoulders sagged when she rea...
I write to remember, to question, and to connect. Here you’ll find essays, stories, and fragments of life — all the ways I try to make sense of the world, one sentence at a time.