Pretty much everything that isn’t terrible is awesome in America now.
Police caught the guy responsible for smashing windows and painting swastikas outside Jewish businesses on Devon Avenue. He’s out on bail now, and this morning’s paper included a picture of him. What...
On Maui, one November, Hugh and I went swimming, and turned to find a gigantic sea turtle coming up between us. As gentle as a cow she was, and with a cow’s dopey, almost lovesick expression on her fa...
November 4, 1987 Chicago I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read I LOVE KILLING COMMUNISTS. The word love was replaced by a heart shape I’m guessing they’ll put on the typewriter keyboard any d...
Never again would I have so many friends, and such good ones, though I’m not exactly sure why. Perhaps I’ve grown less likable over the years, or maybe I’ve just forgotten how to meet people. The init...
My mother was, for the most part, delighted with my brother and regarded him with the bemused curiosity of a brood hen discovering she has hatched a completely different species.
March 30, 1998Because I was in a bind with my BBC story, I devoted most of my day to defrosting the freezer.
Lisa and I groaned, cursing our stupidity. Once again we’d been duped. There was nothing worse than spending an afternoon on a golf course. We knew what was in store for us and understood that the nex...
Like everything else, holiday gifts escalate. The presents get better and better until one year you decide you don’t need anything else and start making donations to animal shelters. Even if you hate...
June 3, 1987 Chicago This afternoon I found a $50 bill in the foyer of the building near the mailboxes. It was folded thin and full of cocaine. Some of it spilled when I opened it up, but there’s stil...
I’d come across a strap-on penis. It seemed pretty old and was Band-Aid colored, about three inches long and not much bigger around than a Vienna sausage, which was interesting to me. You’d think that...
It’s not lost on me that I’m so busy recording life, I don’t have time to really live it. I’ve become like one of those people I hate, the sort who go to the museum and, instead of looking at the magn...
It's not that I don't have opinions about these things. I just don't feel they're in any way special. Sure, I follow the news. I read the papers and listen to the radio, but I'm not privy to any insid...
It was the stupidest thing the cat had ever heard of, an AA program in prison.
In my experience, it was hard to write without your preferred tools, but impossible to write without a cigarette.
IT IS HIS BIRTHDAY, and Hugh and I are seated in a New York restaurant, awaiting the arrival of our fifteen-word entrées. He looks very nice, dressed in the suit and sweater that have always belonged...
I'm not a misogynist. I'm a misanthrope. I hate everyone equally.
I won't put in a load of laundry, because the machine is too loud and would drown out other, more significant noises - namely, the shuffling footsteps of the living dead.
I was a smart-ass, born and raised. This had been my curse and would continue to be so.
I told myself that if I looked at my brother differently, it was because of the suit, nto the weight. He was a grown man now. He was going to get married, and therefore, he was a changed person.He too...