Off Assignment, Letter to a Stranger: “To Old Johnny”
Letter to a Stranger
Lavinia Spalding
Your shop was smaller than our kitchen but better stocked, the shelves on both sides of its entrance packed to the ceiling with shrimp chips and kimchi, dried cuttlefish, ramen noodles, and vacuum-sealed chicken drumsticks.
It had no name, the shop—it was just that faded orange awning in front—so we called it “Orange Awning,” until one day when we’d run out of maekju or soju or oo-yu, or butter or cigarettes or change for the bus, and someone in our apartment suggested to someone else that they run across the alley to Orange Awning.
“Who’s Old Johnny?” a friend asked, misunderstanding.
So that became your name. You: the ancient man, stony and bony, who squatted day and night on a flimsy plastic orange stool inches from the cement, paying us no special attention when we charged through the door five, six times a week, our heads bobbing in greeting, all smiles and a sing-song anyonghashimnika.
-
The New York Times, Modern Love: “Goodbye, My Fantasy Man”
-
AFAR Magazine: “Playing by Heart” (Winner of a Gold Lowell Thomas Award)
-
Longreads: “The Cabin”
-
River Teeth: A lot of Tomorrows
-
Going: New Orleans, The Southern US City Where Jazz Was Born
-
Parents: I Grew Up in a Haunted House—Here’s What I Tell My Child About Ghosts
AFAR: Seoul Food
Off Assignment, Letter to a Stranger: “To the Shopkeeper in Fez”
The Bold Italic: “Working Three Jobs Nearly Killed Me”
AirBnB Magazine: “So I Slept in a ...Cave”
AAA Westways Magazine: “Korean Encore”
AFAR.com: “Everything You Need to Know About Jazz Fest”
AFAR.com: “Get Beyond the Beads: The 101 on Mardi Gras Throws”
AFAR.com: “The Art of Eating Crawfish in New Orleans”
AFAR.com: “Find New Orleans’s Soul at These 6 Mini-Museums”
Ms. Magazine: “Politics is on the Menu at Hell’s Backbone Grill”
AirBnB Magazine: “New Orleans for the Celebratory”
Off Assignment, Letter to a Stranger: “To the one who was supposed to get away”
-
The New York Times, Modern Love: “Goodbye, My Fantasy Man”
I wasn’t willing to settle for less than kismet. But chasing a romantic illusion nearly kept me from finding love. -- The night I agreed to try online dating, I told my roommate Meghan I hoped I wouldn’t meet anyone because that wasn’t the kind of story . . .
-
River Teeth: A lot of Tomorrows
We are at the dinner table when my young son asks, “The day after a lot of tomorrows, will we build a treehouse?” I want to scoop him in my arms, this boy so eager and fresh, so tall his forehead meets my shoulder. If I could, I would lift his body above . . .
-
AFAR: Seoul Food
I still clearly remember my first meal in South Korea. I had just arrived in the country, fresh out of college and ready to begin a job teaching English. My new boss had whisked me from the airport to a barbecue restaurant, where I’d watched in panic as . . .
-
The New R&R
. . .
