I acknowledge that pleas to support independent bookstores, especially during the pandemic, are nothing original. Just recently, The New York Times highlighted how crucial it is to support local bookstores. And the American Booksellers’ Association, or the ABA, recently launched their “Boxed Out” campaign to encourage people to shop indie, complete with cardboard installations covering bookstores across the country, indicating how indie bookstores have been shut out by Amazon deliveries. So while articles like these may sound repetitive, as the pandemic wreaks havoc on the economy, while billionaires get even richer, it’s become vitally important to sound the alarms to support indie booksellers right now. According to the CEO of ABA, Allison K. …

MAD LIBS

Disclaimer: This story is intended to be random and humorous. It is published in Fill in the Blanks publication, inspired by the classic game, Mad Libs. Blank words contributed by Sarah Keays, Damon Ferrara, Sandra Grauschopf, Elan Cassandra, Victoria A. Fraser, Jamaal Ameer, Quy Ma, Dariuš Butkevičius, and Mari Moore.

So you’re [coyly] single now? Well, that’s no reason to [tipple] and mope. In fact, this is actually a [lemony] time to focus on [poison]. With my [kitten]-winning 5-step technique of [Margaritaville] tailored to you, [Alicia], you’ll become the [sparkliest] version of yourself.

1. Express your feelings.

Whether you [villainously] vent to [testicles] or just to your journal, it’s important you reflect on your [cacophanies] and what you’ve learned from the [dog collar]. …

Growing up, my parents and grandparents would point out people with numerous tattoos as the epitome of what to avoid. “You’ll only work at McDonald’s with that many tattoos,” they would say, only within my earshot of course. And I know this was just reflective of their culture — that they wanted numerous opportunities for me, that tattoos were even more stigmatized for previous generations.

But even when I adopted a more progressive mindset toward tattoos, not judging anyone else for them, I couldn’t imagine myself with one unless I found the very perfect design. But my standards of perfection were so high they basically barred any chance of my getting one. …

I love the satire site Reductress, and came across a post of theirs on Instagram entitled “‘Sorry, I’m So Bad at Texting,’ Says Friend Who Is Actually Bad at Friendship.” Clearly, that’s an over-generalized sentiment, but isn’t most satire exaggerated? In any case, I didn’t expect this level of controversy from a publication frequently addressing much touchier topics.

Nearly every top comment expressed some iteration of nobody being owed their time, friends being selfish for wanting regular texts, and mental illness impeding them from regular communication.

Some comments on both sides seemed needlessly aggressive, aligned with typical Internet discourse, but the general tune I’ve heard there and offline conveys that texting practices shouldn’t be reflective of a friendship’s strength. …

I look down at my phone for directions again. Maybe Loraine Court is the next block over. This street seems far too suited for conventional upper-middle-class families to have a Victorian shrine to the dead tacked on to the end of its cul de sac.

But there it is, the San Francisco Columbarium, its words engraved next to its imposing gate. It looks like a scene you’d have in a dreamscape, with its classical architecture, manicured garden, careful symmetry, and despite its idealized appearance, an eerie quietness.

Maybe it’s actually some haunted building mired in the past, only appearing to a few unsuspecting victims. …

“Are you high?” a classmate asked me in second period drama class.

“What? No!” It was ridiculous to even consider, given who I was at age 15 — a nerdy Christian with about three friends. I wouldn’t have even known how to get or use drugs. It was also about 9 a.m.

“Your eyes. They’re really dilated. I thought you were high.”

I received a couple comments like that over my eyes throughout the years, like a friend commenting he’d think I was into him if he didn’t know better, but infrequently enough that I figured it probably wasn’t much to worry about. …

That “Bergen?” structure was the first thing my family and I noticed when exiting the airport. The question mark added a suspicious air, as if the airport wasn’t certain if it really was located in Bergen, or just wasn’t very sure of itself.

As it turns out, it was an art piece meant to capture “the feeling of melancholy in being a modern human, constantly traveling, from airport to airport” and evoke both existentialism and self-irony, according to the artist (translated from Norwegian).

In any case, we soon learned the city of Bergen, or the “city of seven mountains,” had every reason to be confident. It boasts plenty of beautiful sights across the mountains and fjords as well as a long, important history without seeming isolated, rooted in its medieval past, or out-of-touch. …

Whenever people would ask me for travel tips in Berlin, I didn’t know how to answer. Not only because I lived there a relatively short time —just a fall semester — but also because Berlin felt far too complex to be summed up in a few points of interest. Like an array of parallel worlds: Historical Berlin, Nature Berlin, Artsy Berlin, etc. Berlin provided culture and recreation in startling depth, with only a couple flashy tourist sites. Even the kinds of places that usually seem like easy suggestions, like museums, felt overwhelming to narrow down for prospective visitors. Too many great museums, parks, memorials. …