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s Illustration by Kat Morgan I knew I was middle-aged when I started to like smooth jazz. I hum along, slide $100 into a Caveman Keno machine, and sit with my legs crossed, exposing my hairy thighs like an embarrassing dad. I’m just 35, and childless, but aging parents and grandparents appear to be the casino’s target demographic. A few rounds in, I look to my left and see a little girl and her mother at a Video Poker unit. Kids aren’t allowed to hang out in casinos. The actual law forbids it. I guess Binion’s quit enforcing that one,...

ss "The Castle Berg," by Herbert George, Antarctica, 1910. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Two men squat in a small tent on the Antarctic plateau, hungrily watching their Primus stove. With no hope of rescue, they’re trying to cross more than two hundred miles of treacherous terrain to base camp before they starve to death. Members of the larger Australasian Antarctic Expedition, they’d left Hobart, Tasmania a year before, in December 1911, the Heroic Age of polar exploration. Crowds cheered, bunting flapped, and politicians made speeches. They sailed toward a barely-mapped continent, ambitiously planning to study and explore. In...

When I return to the bedroom from nursing my infant son at 3AM my wife rolls over and says, “The moon is too bright.” I wonder why the heat guy hasn’t yet fixed our boiler. He initially rushed over when I told him we had a six-week-old but now it has been four days. Is it because he discovered that “we” is comprised of two women? And he, a good Southern man, a good Christian, could not help but think, Let ’em burn. But we are cold. My wife’s fingers are sliced up from the hatchet she has been using...

It’s been almost three years since my Grandy taught me how to needlepoint and I’m more thankful than ever to have a hobby that keeps my mind and hands occupied and off my phone. My dedication to carving out time for needlepointing definitely comes in waves — some months I’m exceedingly determined to finish a project and others I neglect it entirely. I’d been particularly neglectful of needlepoint since having Teddy six months ago, but lately I’m seeing so many people pick it up and it’s inspiring me to turn off the news and pick up my half-finished canvases again. I...

It’s been almost three years since my Grandy taught me how to needlepoint and I’m more thankful than ever to have a hobby that keeps my mind and hands occupied and off my phone. My dedication to carving out time for needlepointing definitely comes in waves — some months I’m exceedingly determined to finish a project and others I neglect it entirely. I’d been particularly neglectful of needlepoint since having Teddy six months ago, but lately I’m seeing so many people pick it up and it’s inspiring me to turn off the news and pick up my half-finished canvases again. I...