“When I was fifteen I was trying to lose weight by eating tomato sandwiches. And man, it actually tasted good. You put salt and pepper, and some mayonnaise. That’s all I ate. Only problem is I live in the Bronx around a lot of Spanish people, and they always got nicknames and shi … | Continue reading
“It had to be terrifying for my parents. They came from St. Kitts with nothing. It was moment-to-moment, paycheck-to-paycheck. At one point we were living in a one bedroom apartment with eight kids. It was chaos. There was always something happening: fighting over the remote cont … | Continue reading
“Right after we met, I was in the bathroom taking a shit and she came in and sat on my lap. I was like no fucking way. That’s when I knew she was the one.” | Continue reading
“I used to say: ‘I like to watch TikTok, or YouTube.’ But I don’t really like to describe myself that way anymore. Because if you think about it, that’s not really something you do. It’s just something that pulls you in. It made me feel connected. Like, I know this person. But I … | Continue reading
“It can feel like hamster wheel shit. My mental health gets in the way. I forget there’s a sun sometimes. But if I died today, my testament would be my community. It’s this huge queer community. Every color of the fucking rainbow. Every gender, every race, every orientation. Righ … | Continue reading
“My grandmother got us out of foster care, piece by piece. At one point there were like fifteen kids in her home: all my siblings, all my cousins. She worked all the time, sewing linings into hats for Jewish men. There was a room in the basement with four sewing machines, and eve … | Continue reading
“Everyone cares about me because I love them because they love me.” | Continue reading
“We were high school sweethearts. He came up to me in the hallway one day and I said: absolutely not. I was an honor student. He was smoking weed, running around, getting in trouble. My parents moved our family away from the inner city for a reason, and it was to get away from al … | Continue reading
“He’s a dangerous man. In December he came to visit. At the airport he opens the door of the Uber, and it hits another car. The driver starts screaming: ‘You broke my car!’ I pull the guy aside, and I tell him: ‘Please, not this man. Not this man.’ This man doesn’t care about not … | Continue reading
“Maybe something happened. Maybe I’ll be driving to the softball game, and I’m sad. Cause something bad happened. I’m gonna keep that moment kinda private. If I need to talk through it, I’ll call someone. So when it’s time to step out of the car, I’m happy. I like to keep that im … | Continue reading
“I had no desire to have a kid. It was my partner Maira’s idea. But Maira is right, usually. And Maira was right again.” Clarification from Marc: I wanted to elaborate on my first statement. For me, deciding to create our child was a leap of faith, inspired by love. I wasn’t in … | Continue reading
“Sometimes I like to dress fancy. Sometimes I do, like, punk cool. But today I just did normal.” | Continue reading
“My wife has my back. More than the girlfriend. If I ever got in trouble, my wife would be there– so I love her too. But it’s two different worlds. My wife and I fuck, but when my girlfriend is in front of me, it’s like: I need that now. We found each other at that perfect moment … | Continue reading
“We have a cabinet in our apartment called The Witch Cabinet; it’s full of knick-knacks: tarot cards, random rocks, bottle caps, buttons; there’s a whole beaver skull in there. Our walls are covered in murals. Our windowsills are covered with random bunches of dried flowers that … | Continue reading
“He’s going to be, he is the man who will dance around the living room with her and make silly faces and tell her silly stories and tell her that he loves her all the time and take her on great adventures and read her amazing stories and make cool shit with her and go on long wal … | Continue reading
“I actually toned it down quite a bit this year. A few years ago I dressed like Jesus.” | Continue reading
“Goodwill had exactly his size in everything. He is so uncomfortable right now, but I am loving it.” | Continue reading
“Here’s something: if my wife and children are upset, or in trouble, I have a physical ache. It’s a physical thing. That’s real. But other than that, I don’t feel much. Don’t get me wrong. It’s nice when my kids give me a hug and all that jazz. I even participate, in the same way … | Continue reading
“We’re unpacking it, little by little. She held us all together. Always made sure there was food on the table, always washed our clothes, always took care of me when I was sick. But she was fierce when we were kids. She’d get angry with me, zero to a hundred, in a second. I coul … | Continue reading
“Whenever there was an event at school, he’d come straight from work. Wearing these heavy blue coveralls. Stomping around in these big, chunky boots. He’d have a tag with his name on it: Herbie, written big like. He was always so noticeable. That’s the main thing I remember: the … | Continue reading
“There was a bad break up, sort of. It was eight months ago. I’m past it now. But I had to experience that for the first time. I don’t think I handled it as well as I could. At the time I couldn’t grasp that maybe it wasn’t anybody’s fault. Maybe I just wanted to be with the pers … | Continue reading
“I used to be the one that people came to for everything. Recently my sister Ayla turned sixteen, and I helped her get a job at the sneaker store I used to work at. So there’s still some stuff I can do. But not a lot. I was at the bodega earlier today, trying to reach for shit. A … | Continue reading
“I worked as a legal assistant for 50 years. And I’ve always been lucky to work for honest, kind, brilliant attorneys. All that paperwork might seem boring to other people. But I never even took lunch, that’s how much I loved it. I loved the law. It’s very precise. My work needed … | Continue reading
“My parents used to tell us: with what little you have, be a blessing to others. But my father also said this: don’t let people smell your money. I didn’t know what he meant. But what he meant is: when you have things, don’t announce it. Because once you announce it, people smell … | Continue reading
“Growing up my mother would let me put on anything I wanted to wear and dance around the house. And I still believe in that. I made this hat from toilet paper rolls.” | Continue reading
“It felt like freedom, maybe; but I was spiraling. There was a hurricane in my head: certain addictions, and impulsive decisions that could affect me for the rest of my life. Other people would see it, and they’d say: ‘He’s so fun.’ But nobody was looking at me, really. They’d ne … | Continue reading
Just returned from Ghana where Paul Ninson held the grand opening of the Dikan Center last weekend, barely a year after our fundraiser. Our man does not mess around! The city of Accra turned out in force. It was so nice to meet the community of Ghanian leaders, businesspeople, an … | Continue reading
“When I was a kid I’d hide between the bedpost and the wall and read books about King Arthur. I wanted to be a knight. I wanted to be anything other than my father. We lived under his rule; it was horror. My mother was loving, and strong in many ways. But she wouldn’t leave him. … | Continue reading
“I haven’t been seventeen for very long. But I will say, aside from the schoolwork, it’s really a wonderful time. I have the freedom to go wherever I want to go, but not a ton of responsibility. I can walk out of my house with my dog, and go for this walk, and not worry about muc … | Continue reading
(15/15) “There’s something I do every morning. When I’m leaving for work. I’ll go in his room and give him a kiss on the forehead. Now if I was to try this during the day, he’d never allow it. He’d push me away. But if I catch him right when he wakes up, he’s disoriented. I think … | Continue reading
(14/15) “Never once have I called him by his real name. He’s even saved in my phone as Santa. He has a house up north somewhere. I’ll go months without hearing from him, but then he’ll text. And it’s never just a text. It’s a long paragraph, starting with: ‘Hello my friend, I hop … | Continue reading
(13/15) “There’s a pep rally at the beginning of every season. Everyone’s there: the white flowers, the straw bosses, the elves. First we go through all the Human Resources stuff. Then the person on stage will pause, and say: ‘Do I hear jingle bells?’ And everyone goes crazy. The … | Continue reading
(12/15) “He was just a man. St. Nicholas was just a man in a village, who gave presents to children. But he was so kind that people remembered his story. They called him Santa. And in 1862 RH Macy put an ad in the paper, saying that Santa had come to his store. That’s how it all … | Continue reading
(11/15) “When I was a kid the saddest day of the year was during the second week of January. When one day I’d come home from school, and shout: ‘I’m home!’ And my voice would echo through the house. It meant the decorations had been taken down. And Christmas was gone for another … | Continue reading
(10/15) “They don’t give you a pamphlet for it. When they start to click over into adulthood; it’s like a little death. I’ll never forget the day I brought home a Star Wars Lego set. I poured it out on the table, and started to organize the pieces. Jack was maybe five. He pushed … | Continue reading
(9/15) “Every Santa gets a handler: to walk him to his chair, to bring him water, to give him Tic Tacs. But nothing in Santaland is called by its actual name. Santa handlers are called straw bosses. It’s an old circus term, for people who handle the elephants. I made sure that my … | Continue reading
(8/15) “In late November, all the Santas gather in a meeting room for breakfast and coffee. Twenty-five to thirty guys. All different races, religions, orientations. Most empathetic group of men I’ve ever met. It’s an emotional mess. We talk about why we’re there. We swap stories … | Continue reading
(7/15) “Summer, Highland Falls. One of, if not the best, Billy Joel songs. Lyrically and musically. The left hand goes down the keys, playing the sad notes. The right hand goes up, playing the happy notes. There’s a point in the song where he says: ‘It’s either sadness or euphori … | Continue reading
(6/15) “It was a theater guild that saved my life. It was a small guild; twice a year they’d perform musicals at a local community theater. First they brought me on as a magic consultant, but soon they were giving me roles. I fell in love with it. It was a way to keep performing. … | Continue reading
(5/15) “It was never supposed to happen. It was summertime. He was tan. He was only forty-six. He had a heart attack at work. The policemen on our doorstep said by the time they got to him, it was too late. I’d never even been to a funeral before. First funeral I ever went to, an … | Continue reading
(4/15) “There’s a Christopher Reeve movie, called Somewhere In Time. About a playwright who time travels. He goes back to 1912, and meets this girl, and falls in love. I watched it as a little kid. And when it was over I ran straight to my mom; I’m in tears. I said: ‘What if the … | Continue reading
(3/15) “We lived in a house that my great grandfather bought in the 1930’s. My mother was in charge of decorating. Every room she’d fill with little tchotchkes: santa on a ladder, santa on the beach, santa on skis. There was a banner in the living room with every photo we’d taken … | Continue reading
(2/15) “Christmas, 1983. The year I learned it was all a dupe. I was twelve years old. And the holiday season began like any other. With my mother sitting me in front of the TV to watch the Thanksgiving Day parade. Every five minutes I’d run into the kitchen with updates: Mickey … | Continue reading
(1/15) “It’s a magic trick, a dupe. Nothing but an illusion. And it starts the moment you walk in the door. Biggest store in the world. Eight full floors of shopping. And Santaland is at the very top. You can take the elevators. Or you can do what I did when I was a kid, and what … | Continue reading
“Grown-ups get the worst mail. It all comes in the same long, white envelope and inside is boring stuff that you have to do. | Continue reading
“To be honest I didn’t think I’d make it past twenty-one. I was living day-to-day. Thinking I knew everything, thinking I was an adult. And I was angry. About a lot, like a lot. I was fifteen when I had my daughter. And she was four when I went to prison for the first time. I cam … | Continue reading
“I knew if they ever found out about me, I’d end up like Johnny Yablonsky. Johnny was soft, he was feminine, he was clearly gay. The neighborhood guys would make him blow them; then beat the shit out of him. He always had a lot of bruises, and absenteeism. He was so defeated. I’v … | Continue reading
“She woke me up the other morning and was like: ‘Daddy, it’s nail polish day.’ And it was on. I was like OK, let’s do it. Just dive into it. She did a sloppy job on Daddy’s nails, but I enjoyed it. Well, I didn’t enjoy it. Not like that. You know what I mean; I enjoyed her enjoyi … | Continue reading