Grace Ellis Barber
Bio
Author, Artist, Asian mixed chick, Philly girl • Writer of nerdy romcoms, humorous essays, & overly ambitious historical fiction • Repped by Claire Harris of PS Literary
Stories (4/0)
George Elwood Ellis
Not long after my father’s initial hospitalization in December, I made my husband go shopping for a new suit. “For my mental health,” I think I said. The clerk at the Haggar store was a talkative, colorful man and I watched with amusement as he held a pair of hapless shoppers hostage regaling them with his personal chronicles of Sunday mornings as a young boy dressed in a 3-piece suit, Fedora, alligator shoes and a cane. I poked my head into my husband’s dressing room and whispered, “It’s like being visited by the spirit of my father.” Anyone who knew my dad, sooner or later, found themselves cornered while he delivered a story loudly, passionately, lengthily, and with little to no regard to your actual interest level.
By Grace Ellis Barber2 years ago in Families
Why even 'good girls' need pap smears
9:00 AM Monday morning: I'm in a tiny room at my doctor's office staring at stirrups. If you are unfamiliar with stirrups (and if you are, I am going to assume you are a man), they are two folding metal arms that protrude from the foot of a gynecological exam table, otherwise know as the most uncomfortable bed in the world. If you are lucky, the little foot rests at the ends have socks on them. I am not lucky today. My feet will be on the cold bare metal. I strip down to the nothing and don a comically thin paper gown (Opening in the front! I have to remind myself every time) and hop up on the table where I drape a thin paper sheet over my lap and wait for the doctor to arrive.
By Grace Ellis Barber3 years ago in Viva
There was a Time
Before I had children, I had no idea why people complained so much about Daylight Savings Time. Once a year, you’d get an extra hour of sleep, and, twice a year, the existential satisfaction of successfully resetting all your clocks. Many millennia have passed since those childless days*. I now know that all DST really does is make children into hellions and parents into zombies. Worse, due to the “helpfulness” of technology, I’m now largely deprived of the small comfort competent clock maintenance. Most clocks reset themselves and I fear that we humans will soon lose the skill all together. It’ll go the way of reading paper maps, cursive penmanship, checkbook balancing, and being able to tell a real conservative from a fake one. The future is grim, folks.
By Grace Ellis Barber3 years ago in Families
