Content Warning: Mentions of over-exercise, eating disorders, body insecurity It’s 7:55 a.m. on a Saturday, and I’m sliding weights onto a barbell in the corner of Studio 1 of the Nelson, fidgeting with the metal clamps that keep them in place. Fitness Instructor Kay Rutherford tests the sound system while other students and community members […]

Next to an out-of-business Herberger’s and a local deli chain, my hometown comic book store sits with cardboard cutouts of superheroes and logos decorating its windows. Above the door, a font reminiscent of the ’80s spells out “Granite City Comics and Games.” When I go back home, I drive past it every once in a […]

hard-boiled romance My freshman year of college, I would schlep down to New York City once a month to see a boy from high school. We had a great time going to the Met and eating oversized pizza. By the start of sophomore year, however, my trips had become more of a chore than anything […]

The Brown University Bookstore smells of burnt espresso and cardboard boxes, half-emptied after the initial shopping period mayhem. With some free time before classes and nowhere better to be, I meander past the Bestsellers and the Newly Recommended, glancing out the windows at the metal scaffolding and orange plastic of Thayer Street’s recent construction. The […]

The traffic lights at the intersection of Waterman and Brook change despite the empty streets on Saturday mornings, flashing red and green against the usually wet asphalt. Broken glass and crumpled beer cans catch in the gutters littered with fallen yellow leaves. In the quiet, a RIPTA bus announces that it is turning. A flock […]