Cover Photo: A photo from the perspective of a rollercoaster rider, just as the rollercoaster exits a mountain and scales up a peak in the tracks, where it will plunge downward. A rainbow of pennants float above, strung from the mountain's opening.
Photograph by Park Troopers/Unsplash

Be Vital! Be Vigorous! Ride the Rollercoaster

Talking about it would make me sound mentally ill, and sounding mentally ill—in this economy?—feels dangerous.

I enjoy approximately the same relationship to the truth as most people: I savor its bracing quality; THE SIMPLICITY OF COMMUNICATION; right up to the point it stops being convenient. I do not publish untruths on a billboard for the kick of the thing. But if an exaggeration will add seasoning to a story I only realize is half-baked and palely tedious once I’ve embarked on the telling of it, then: sure. If a friend invites me to their house party and on the night of, I fall asleep on my couch, then: obviously.

so sorryGrey’s Anatomy

I

thinks

Maybe he already has a girlfriend?

perfect

Mental Health CrisisSolidarity’s Defeat Tears the Country in Two

that

is

fucking

this

Yes

get back on the horse

you

so funny

Notting Hill

you

Two.One.

Sophie Atkinson is a British writer and editor based in Manchester. She has previously written for the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, Die Zeit, Hazlitt, and others.