On a Durban beach, hundreds of translucent orbs carrying long blue cords lay shrivelling in the sun. Gail pulls me aside before I can step down on a stinger; I’ve mistaken them for bits of plastic wrap.
[Read more...]

Ghis’s eyes tell me shut up. I do what he says even though his inaccuracies bug me. He edits what he shares with the world in a way I can’t. [Read more...]

After four vaginal examinations, the ultrasound wand is almost commonplace. At every visit, Dr. J uses the wand to examine and measure my ovaries and uterus, as well as the minute cyst that has not budged from the right side of my fallopian tubes since my first visit in March. [Read more...]

An old man wearing a jellaba is half-asleep in his chair, on his lap a copper plate of cakes dripping with honey. Using a sheet of newspaper, he holds out a honey-almond briouat that has been dipped scalding hot into boiling honey. Tomorrow, there will be a griouch made with sesame, saffron or orange blossom. Another time, there will be a sugar crescent cookie or a butter ghoriba. A few dirham change hands. He places the money in his turban. [Read more...]

I buy new expensive area rugs from Ikea and wait until Ivan’s stomach flu has run its course, and begin tearing up the old carpets I bought from Ollie’s Discount Outlet, quickly realizing that the entertainment center and television that my ex-boyfriend and his brother slowly shifted into the living room when we moved in are too heavy for me to get one of the carpet slabs completely out from under it. [Read more...]