But songbirds are trash, the chicken said, and the guinea hen laughed, saying, Well, then, I guess we could all use a little more trash in our lives.
But instead I am applying for a job as an elf. Even worse than applying is the very real possibility that I will not be hired, that I couldn't even find work as an elf. That's when you know you're a f...
Broke a nail clean off, and when it grew back it looked like a Brazil nut.
Bitch, I’m here to tell you that it’s going to be all right. We’ll get through this shit, motherfucker, just you wait.
Bill Gates, who has murdered more innocents than even the Clintons, apparently.
Back off, world. It’s time for me to be good to me.
As a child I assumed that when I reached adulthood, I would have grown-up thoughts. By this I meant that I would stop living in a fantasy world; that, while standing in line for a hamburger or my shot...
And he always has a fantastic body, shown at its best on the cross, which—face it—was practically designed to make a man’s stomach and shoulders look good.
After I die, and you read something bad about yourself in my diary, do yourself a favor and keep reading, I often say to Hugh. I promise that on the next page you’ll find something flattering. Or mayb...
A few years later, in the midst of a brief academic setback, she trained him to act as her emotional cheerleader. I'd call and hear him in the background, screaming, We love you, Lisa! and You can do...
The taste of warm rain; the smell of a baby; the din of a swollen river, rushing past her tree and onward to infinity.
The lower bunks, both of us longing to be pinned. You kids think you invented sex, my mother was fond of saying. But hadn’t we? With no instruction manual or federally enforced training period, didn’t...
Started feeling real sorry for everybody, even though they were screaming and acting silly. I thought about how much work it was to have fun, and how brave we all were for going to the trouble, since...
Some cigarettes and when I returned she sat me down to discuss the Winter Olympics. Did you see it on the TV? That Tonya Harding? I never liked her. She’s a street fighter is what she is, a dirty snot...
Or the class moron will go on to become the president of the United States—though that’s more likely to happen at Harvard or Yale, schools that will pretty much let in anybody.
Inhabited by hopeless, motor-mouthed simpletons, drifting from a bad place to somewhere even worse. If you’re lucky, people on the bus will wake you in order to borrow a cigarette. The man occupying t...
But that’s what fantasies are for: they allow you to skip the degradation and head straight to the top.
But all of a sudden they’re poets, right, like that’s all it takes — being in love.
You’re trying to convince me? Amy asked. The one who has a second apartment two blocks from her first apartment just so she can get away from her rabbit for a couple of hours a day?
You’re not going to throw this away, are you? she says, and she’ll be talking about the grains of rice in the bottom of the salt shaker. No, Mrs. Peacock, by all means, you take them. They’ll come in...