M.C. Easton

All in the Family

I imagine my mother at my age. A little older. Maybe 36. It’s all she has left, she tells herself. And then she flips the switch. The motor hums. And she leans into the sharp light at her sewing machine and plows another seam. One woman mattered to my mother more than any other: herContinue reading “All in the Family”

Just Another Cupcake Mishap

I first discovered Seattle’s cupcake culture five years ago, on a display table in a Queen Anne grocery store. Cupcake Royale packages single and double cupcakes in boxes color-coded with childhood memories of Baskin Robbins’s circa 1986–those brown cartons crowned with polka dots of alternating pink and brown. It was love at first sight. Under the little cellophaneContinue reading “Just Another Cupcake Mishap”

Circa 1939

Grandpa Ellis didn’t talk about the time he spent riding the rails. He didn’t talk much at all. He’d come of age in the company of hungry, hollow-eyed men, and he’d learned their silence well. Latched on like barnacles to the roofs of freight cars, they clicked off the miles of open country. He diedContinue reading “Circa 1939”

The Videogame That Changed My Life

I’m not a gamer. I didn’t even know what IRL meant until a few months ago. Shameful, for a girl from Seattle. But then, I came up against a challenge that nothing but a videogame was going to get me through. In July 2013, I was in excruciating pain. I couldn’t turn my head more thanContinue reading “The Videogame That Changed My Life”

When Diving Under the Table Isn’t Enough

Recently, I went to a Seattle bar hosting festivities in honor of the Scottish poet Robert Burns. As my friend and I ate our haggis and enjoyed the bagpipes, someone volunteered himself as company. A man in his sixties slid into our booth and beamed his red cheeks and full white beard straight at me. HeContinue reading “When Diving Under the Table Isn’t Enough”

Saying Goodbye

One hour ago I packed up my housemate and leaned through the driver’s open window to tease her. Then, I stepped back. She spooled up her iPod, and her stereo’s bass thumped. We grinned. We had crammed her windows with socks and running shoes and an old clock, the folded flag from her father’s funeral. All the detritusContinue reading “Saying Goodbye”

When Did Gentle Become Weak?

Dave Eggers’ 2006 novel, What Is the What, opens with a violent robbery for which the narrator, a Sudanese refugee, blames himself. Earlier that day, he came across his attackers in his neighborhood, and smiled at them. Now held at gunpoint, the refugee asks himself, “Why did I smile at this woman? I smile reflexively and itContinue reading “When Did Gentle Become Weak?”

I Can’t Talk to Men

I mean it. I’m 33 years old, and it doesn’t matter if the dude is 21 or 41. If I find him remotely attractive, I’m a blathering, stammering mess. So over the weekend, I’m out with friends, and a handsome server goes around the table, taking everyone’s wine orders. And I begin to swell withContinue reading “I Can’t Talk to Men”

On Dressing (and Undressing) at the Public Pool

Americans are weird about nudity. Maybe because we associate it exclusively with sex. To be a nudist in America is not just eccentric—it’s deviant. So deviant, in fact, that it’s illegal. You must have private property, fences, and warning signs—at the very least—to go topless, let alone in the buff. And I’m no exception to American puritanism.Continue reading “On Dressing (and Undressing) at the Public Pool”

Trust the Not-Knowing

Because sometimes the honest place is the empty place. The place of uncertainty. I’ve been talking a lot with my brother lately–this skinny white guy from a West Coast suburb who now works as an engineer on the East Coast. We’ve been talking about privilege, race, gender, social class, and orientation. I love my brother. AndContinue reading “Trust the Not-Knowing”