Laurie Stone

Hudson

Author at Everything is Personal Newsletter

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Articles

Local Stimulant

1 month ago | lauriestone.substack.com | Laurie Stone

The other day, I looked in the mirrorand said, What would happen if you became the opposite of what you are? I tried it, and I could see I was still rubbish at it. What has changed is the way I look back. In the past, feeling a sense of failure about a relationship, I’d get that elevator dropping panic in my stomach, and then I’d quickly think there was all the time in the world to become something else. There isn't that sense of time now. Perhaps the truth is I didn't care enough to change.
The Marriage Dividend - The Paris Review

2 months ago | theparisreview.org | Laurie Stone

By Laurie Stone April 17, 2025 Something has changed since Richard and I got married in December. I’m not sure what. Have you ever looked in the mirror and noticed you are able to cock one eyebrow higher than ever before? I’m happier. I didn’t imagine I would feel this way when I went downstairs to his studio and said, “I think we should get married.” He looked up from his book and said, “Okay.” Was he bemused, half smiling? I can’t remember.
What's got my attention this week #80

Feb 9, 2025 | theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com | Laurie Stone |Amanda Montei

The Shift With Sam Baker is a reader-supported publication. If you enjoy my work and would like to help me continue to do it, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. SCROLLING• Debbie Harry: “I’m pretty clean now, but I’ve still got a dirty mind.” £• The case against budget culture. • “Let’s get married.” Love this piece by for on getting married in your 70s after 18 years together. • The anti-social century.
The Past Is Not What Happened

Jun 10, 2024 | lauriestone.substack.com | Laurie Stone

As I read old notebooks, I see how, in time, I’ve come to rewrite my life in ways that are consoling. I have unsoured the grapes of the past. The story I invented of my earlier years is one of reliable success, few obstacles, and lots of help—a kind of table laid where I was invited to eat. Buon appetito!What memory has sanded down and that the notebooks show is the way I felt in the face of rejection. And how much rejection there was. I wasn't a hero for pressing on. I didn’t believe in my abilities.
A Change of Heart

May 26, 2024 | lauriestone.substack.com | Laurie Stone

In my twenties, I thought if a man responded to me sexually it meant he liked me, and if he liked me he knew me in some way. We were naked and felt pleasure. This was a kind of knowing, a kind of sympathy. Even if I knew little about the man and little about myself, and even if we didn’t understand the sentences we exchanged after sex. Even if things soon went, oh dear, goodbye. I’m in my thirties or forties when I reverse this understanding or wishful fantasy.
Bad Dinner Guest

Apr 23, 2024 | theparisreview.org | Laurie Stone

By Laurie Stone April 23, 2024 I ruined a dinner party ten years ago in Phoenix. Among the guests was a judge who said abortion was an issue that reasonable people could disagree on, and I opened my mouth. At that time, Richard was teaching at the sprawling university in Tempe. We were at the home of two people who we were lucky even talked to us. The woman in the couple was a brilliant sculptor.
In Service: Writers on Making Ends Meet in the Service Industry

Apr 17, 2024 | lithub.com | Rick Paulas |Laurie Stone |Becca Schuh |Ash Croce

The following is number four of a six-part collaboration with Dirt about “The Myth of the Middle Class” writer. Check back here throughout the week for more on the increasingly difficult prospect of making a living as a full-time writer, or subscribe to Dirt to get the series in your inbox. ____________________In 2023, Dirt‘s most popular essay was “Bad Waitress” by Becca Schuh.
This Just In: Haters Gonna Hate

Apr 3, 2024 | adventuresinjournalism.substack.com | Sari Botton |Laurie Stone

At Oldster earlier this week I published “A Word to the Unwise: Confessions of a Grieving Fool,” a humorous and moving essay in which Shalom Auslander —struggling to accept a close contemporary’s death and the ravages of time — pokes a little fun at me and my magazine, and at some of the more upbeat respondents to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire.
Bone in the Throat

Apr 1, 2024 | lauriestone.substack.com | Laurie Stone

I am looking down at pillows. I'm on a bed, face to face with other people, and I feel welling up compassion for the other person that may not be genuine, but let’s say it is. The person on the other pillow could be a lover, or a mate, or a friend, or someone I don't know well, or my mother. It doesn’t matter. I think to myself, Oh, wow, I can see how it must have been wearying, at the very least, knowing me.
Naked Two Ways

Mar 7, 2024 | lauriestone.substack.com | Laurie Stone

Yesterday, I asked Richard to take a picture of me naked. I was on the floor on a towel. I’d just had a bath. I’m naked with Richard all the time, and he is naked with me. The first time we had sex, he got out of bed and walked to the bathroom, and I looked at his ass, and I thought, “You walk to the bathroom like a deer walks wherever a deer wants to walk.”I like when he sits on the lid of the toilet when I’m taking a bath. We exchange whatever thoughts we’re having since the last time we talked.