Carl Finer

After making the hour-long drive from Los Angeles to Irvine, California, I don’t even have to ring the bell. I slip open the door, take off my shoes, and climb the carpeted stairs. At the top, I’m greeted by an assortment of small dogs seeking…

This year comes with a narrow window to turn things around. As an eighth grade teacher who spent the entire 2020-21 school year teaching remotely, I was eager to return to school in person last year. I was ready for the aspects of teaching that can’t…

The start of the new year at the middle school where I teach in South Los Angeles has been stressful; the rapid spread of the Delta variant shook us from the tenuous sense of security we were lulled into over the summer. Fans blow in the hallway,…

I begin race day by hitting snooze on my alarm. Grumbling about having to be up so early for work, I pull a pillow over my head and fall back asleep. The alarm sounds twice more before my trance is broken and I jerk upright in bed, remembering it’s…

Unlike many Cleveland sports fans, I was glad when LeBron James finally won his championship. Well, perhaps glad isn’t exactly the right word. Not glad like when you get a postcard in the mail from an acquaintance in a faraway place, or see an old…