A poem You have great cakes And decent prices. You are on every corner In my adopted hot state Of Florida You give us vaccinations. And you gave others money As a rich Republican heiress For the January 6th D.C. rally turned riot. Oh, I have mixed feelings about you. You give and give and take away. How do you feel about me? Am I just a human eater to you? Vaccines at Publix Jan. 6 Rally Funded by Top Trump Donor, Helped by Alex Jones, Organizers Say

Have you ever had a friend on four legs? This story is excerpted from Debbie’s new book, From the Period. To the Colon: Memoir of a Child Writer. I never had a dog as a child, but I think dogs, as a species, sensed that I needed one. When a…

Everyone has emerged from their mother, tiny, slippery and crying. But where? How? Here’s my story, excerpted from my new memoir, From the Period. To the Colon: Memoir of a Child Writer. Remember that scene with Billy Crystal in City Slickers when his mother called him on his birthday to…

A poem My mother treasured her father’s watch. David Rudnick wore it in the watch pocket of his trousers. Every day he wound it. Every day he palmed it. Time to open the tailor shop? Time for lunch? Time to close the shop? Time to leave for synagogue? I never…

Part of a Series of Travel Stories: Five Truths and Two Lies New Year’s Day At 9AM the smell of salt water wafted over our king-sized bed at the Holiday Inn in Pompano Beach, Florida. Fuzzy headed, I remembered the date. January 2, 2000. Yesterday I had watched the University of Michigan beat…

Part of a Series of Travel Stories: Five Truths and Two Lies I step forward in line, now it’s my turn. I feel the cool metal of an AK-47 rifle in my hands and sniff the air: a damp mixture of pine, sulfur, and sweat. A human-shaped target riddled with…

Part of a Series of Travel Stories: Five Truths and Two Lies In the summer of 2015, I was rushing to leave Harrods, the fanciest department store in England, maybe anywhere in this universe. I had just walked past a dining table that cost $400,000. Yes $400,000! It had glass…

Part of a Series of Travel Stories: Five Truths and Two Lies We checked into the Samurai Palace. They didn’t have a turnaround in front of the hotel. There was just a little awning and a man outside wearing a traditional Japanese doorman outfit. I thought, What’s with the sword…

Part of a Series of Travel Stories: Five Truths and Two Lies There was a place in the village that all the women went to get the water. It was the women, of course: that was their work. They went all times — and always in the mornings because who…