HeyJaredMelt With Me
Essays on kindness, pop culture, and occasionally poop. Cancer survivor x2. Father of awesome daughters. Four-time Best American Essayist.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 11
- Latest publication
- Sep 25, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 30, 2026
Latest issues
Nouns (opens the original)
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Friends, I’ve been burning the candle at both ends lately, so I’m going to take a week off, which means you can also take a week off my BS, if you so choose. For those of you who really need something to read, please check out my other, other page, Quiet Observations. This week’s post is a guest essay by my good friend , and I think you’ll enjoy reading it. Maybe keep a tissue handy. As always, thanks for being here. I’ll be back next week with a new entry in the “Stupid Shit” series—you won’t w
Notes on a Massacre (opens the original)
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Friends, today is the seventh birthday of my second book, This We’ll Defend, so I thought I’d share with you an essay from it that has never been published anywhere else. I was reading a lot of Didion when I wrote this one, as I’m sure you can tell even if you’ve never read Didion. It’s a long one, and in places difficult topic-wise, but I hope you’ll stay with it. I think it’s worth reading, especially as we move ever closer to war with Iran. Notes on a MassacreWe tell ourselves stories in orde
Piddling (opens the original)
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It was too hot to go fishing but my father wanted to look at the water level in the lake so he picked me up at just past dawn and we drove toward the rising sun. We stopped at a little café just opening and ate breakfast, nodding to the old men already sitting on the bench outside smoking and watching the early morning weather, farmers and crappie fishermen both wearing rubber boots and beards more gray than brown, faces lined by every morning they’ve farmed or fished under the Arkansas sun.Afte
Flying and Falling (opens the original)
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Note: I’ve been working long days, every day, recently, and my writing plans have been hijacked. I’ll get back to it soon, but in the meantime here’s a piece I published at this time last year. I think it’s a good one to revisit. Thanks for being here. Flying and FallingA few days ago, sitting outside after work as I have taken to doing, I found a butterfly with a broken wing in our yard. I had been staring into space when I saw the flutter of wings in the grass, and I had just sat up to see wha
Cancer Tax (opens the original)
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Every year I pay a cancer tax. It kicked in when I was diagnosed with cancer, starting with the cost of the scan that found it. Then there was the biopsy. Then I had to see a urologist. After the urologist, there was a second biopsy because they weren’t sure if they got a sample of the tumor. Somewhere in here there was an endoscopy. A consultation. After my surgery I got cancer-taxed by the hospital for operating costs, and finally I got cancer-taxed when my insurance magically increased itself
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