56 everyday things, re-seen by an astronaut.
The cake says CONGRATULATIONS in blue gel and someone has spelled the name wrong, one letter off, and nobody has the heart to mention it.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThe bass hits you in the sternum first.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThe doors open at five in the morning and the crowd doesn't walk in, it pours, the way water finds the crack in a hull.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldMy mother-in-law overcooks the turkey every year and every year we all say it's perfect.
Read observation → The Astronaut KitchenSomeone left a ring of dried coffee on the counter this morning, a perfect brown circle where the mug had been sitting, and I stood there looking at it…
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldMy neighbor gave me the full tour last weekend.
Read observation → The Astronaut HomeSomebody presses a button on the outside of my house and a chime goes off in the kitchen, and my whole body reorganizes itself around the fact that…
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldTwo people at a corner table, a candle between them that keeps guttering every time the door opens, and neither of them will move it.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThe thing they never tell you is how much of a funeral is just chairs.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldSomebody spent four hundred hours sewing a dragon costume with articulated wings and a working jaw, and today they wore it into a hotel lobby in…
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldShe held onto him for too long.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldSomething is always simmering here, even when it isn't.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldFour people around a table that wobbles on one short leg, and nobody will be the one to fix it.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThe parking lot is full for the first time all year.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldHe tilts the phone, adjusts his stance, checks the lighting, deletes the first one, takes it again.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldMy kid wanted to go into the plywood one at the county fair, the one with the strobe lights and the rubber bats, so I paid the twelve dollars and we…
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThe vending machine down the hall is the loudest thing in the room, which tells you everything.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThe good ones have left.
Read observation → The Astronaut HomeMy wife overwaters the fig.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldTwo people sit across a small table, and one of them is trying very hard to seem like a slightly better version of himself for forty-five minutes.
Read observation → The Astronaut HomeThe static gets me every time.
Read observation → The Astronaut KitchenThe thing beeps when it's done, three times, and my daughter doesn't get up.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldNobody is dancing.
Read observation → The Astronaut HomeThe bathroom mirror fogs over when you shower, and you wipe a clear patch with your palm to shave.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldYou could see the crowd from the parking structure: forty thousand people packed into a field, all facing the same direction, all leaning toward one…
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldTwelve women in a line that bends around the hand dryer, and not one of them is impatient with the wait.
Read observation → The Astronaut On youSomebody wore these to nothing.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldSomebody screwed slats of wood onto a metal frame, bolted it to a concrete slab, and now people sit there and cry.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThe lines are what get me.
Read observation → The Astronaut KitchenThe hum is the first thing I notice now, every time.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldEverybody shuffles through it like it's nothing, and it is a beautiful piece of engineering, so I stay quiet.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldSix people holding hands around a table in a dark room, asking the dead to knock twice.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldI'm scanning a can of soup and the machine tells me, in a woman's recorded voice, that there is an unexpected item in the bagging area.
Read observation → The Astronaut On youFour little pieces of cut metal on a ring, and my whole life used to hang off them.
Read observation → The Astronaut On youThe kid at the register asked if I wanted my receipt and I said yes, which surprised us both.
Read observation → The Astronaut HomeThe mirror fogs up first, before I'm even in.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldYou put the headphones on and the room falls out from under the sound.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThe room is dark on purpose, and everyone is pedaling a bicycle that goes nowhere.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldSome kid in Ohio is dancing in his bedroom at 2 a.m.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldNobody in the next lane knows I'm watching them the way I am.
Read observation → The Astronaut KitchenThe thing groans before it gives you anything.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThe little red badge said "1 unheard message," and I almost cleared it out of habit.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldYou spend the whole rehearsal worrying about the wrong things.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldI keep them muted too, so I get it.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThe brochure promised I would "reconnect with myself," which struck me as odd, since I never once lost track of where I was.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldNobody wants to be here, and that is the first thing I always notice: the shuffle of it, socks on cold tile, everyone holding their shoes and their…
Read observation → The Astronaut HomeThe thing on the nightstand starts screaming at 6:15 and I lie there for a second hating it the way everyone does.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThe doors close and everyone stops talking.
Read observation → The Astronaut On youYou buy them assuming they will fail, and that is the correct attitude.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThe blue light off her face is the only thing moving in the apartment.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldMy daughter is fourteen and the phone in her hand is ruining her afternoon.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThey hand you the baby like a bomb, both arms out, everyone in the room suddenly speaking in that low, careful voice you use around things that might…
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThe tape had gone yellow behind the glow-in-the-dark stars.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldThe dog is shaking on my lap and the linoleum smells like disinfectant and something underneath it I don't let myself name.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldNothing on the walls yet, so the sound is wrong.
Read observation → The Astronaut Out in the worldEveryone signs the card.
Read observation →