When I was a baby I was given a bracelet made of 24 karat gold, it was so small it only fit my wrist until I was 7 or 8. I think I was given it at my christening, but I don't know for sure. I just know I was given it long before I... Continue Reading →
Health Code Violations of Hallmark Christmas Bakeries
Christmas in Love Nick, evil CEO, is in town to buy out Ellie’s Christmas Kringle factory. He’s exchanged his Big-City-Italian-Suit for an appropriate uniform, complete with shoe covers, hair net, and gloves. Ellie, on the other hand, is in full Christmas glam- her long blonde hair free-flowing into those Christmas Kringles. Yummy. Evidently, her homespun... Continue Reading →
An Encounter with Sherlock Holmes
It was a crisp October day and the wind kicked the leaves up to the second-floor window of 221B Baker Street. My companion Sherlock Holmes rose from his chair and gazed down at the entryway to spy a woman pacing back and forth. Within a few minutes, she was inside, and up the stairs. Sherlock... Continue Reading →
I am the 2 Tram, and I am here to ruin your evening.
I am the 2 tram. Excuse me, Bim zwei, but I prefer you call me the 2 tram. I know what you're thinking, you’d be surprised to know, English is actually my native language! No German (or Austrian) efficiency here! My mother was American, an oil painter, she loved watching paint dry. My father was an... Continue Reading →
I Speak Not of Shepherds, Father.
"Bless me father, for I have sinned. It has been innumerable years since my last confession. " "May the lord help you to confess your sins, my child" "Father, I have lied, but I have done so oft in the name of love, or companionship, but these lies have begun to weigh on me, and... Continue Reading →
The kinds of thing I text fuckboys. God save me.
There is, quite honestly, no where I’d rather be than on a train. Waiting in the car, at the station, early enough to have found a good seat, by the window, and next to a person whose arm I can gather affectionately across my lap, my fingers tracing lazy spirals on their forearm, their thumb... Continue Reading →
Biblioquiescent Panic: A Case Study
I decided to escape the confines of my apartment's white walls for the confines of the Austrian National Library's white walls. I tried to visit years ago as a tourist, and left embarrassed, having never really seen the inside. Which I was told is gorgeous. Today, I decided to be brave. I bought an annual... Continue Reading →
And were it so, that I could do it all again, I would.
Ours was the greatest love story ever told. It was never going to end well, it would have been too much. The universe needs some sort of balance, and two little people can’t going on sapping all the joy from it. But here I am, in the falling action of the fairy tale. He returned... Continue Reading →
…And, what do you do for work?
Telling someone I am a pastry chef can be pretty fun. Generally speaking, people like sugar. So generally speaking, when I tell people I deal in sugar, they are more prone to like me. Their face lights up and they say“Oh, how wonderful!”,and for a moment, I feel a bit magical. As if I am... Continue Reading →
[ˈæləsən]
They’re always bitching at me not to leave my till. Todd, Margaret, all of them. Always bitching. Though, they never explain just how it is that I’m supposed to know what the lady standing in front of me means when she says, “A grande-caramel-latte, and one of those on the end” and starts pointing her... Continue Reading →
Alessandra Ranelli 