It's a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters.And if all of us are play-ac...
It was enough to be near her and hear her talk, it didn't always matter what she was saying. It should have, but it didn't.
It was a gross, tasteless thing to say – my brain had been burping up such inappropriate thoughts at inopportune moments. Mental gas I couldn’t control. Like, I’d started internally singing the lyrics...
It had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I'm not a real person and neither is anyone else. I would have done anything to feel real again.
It had barely registered, the lament was so commonplace. But I felt it now.
Imagine the awful satisfaction, to know that all those years of worry had paid off.
If you’re about to do something, and you want to know if it’s a bad idea, imagine seeing it printed in the paper for all the world to see.
If you let a man cancel plans or decline to do things for you, you lose. You don’t get what you want. It’s pretty clear. Sure, he may be happy, he may say you’re the coolest girl ever, but he’s saying...
I'm here, I said, and it felt shockingly comforting, those words. When I'm panicked, I say them aloud to myself. I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. I feel like a warm gust of wind could exhale...
I worry for a second that she wants to set us up: I am not interested in being set up. I need to be ambushed, caught unawares, like some sort of feral love-jackal. I'm too self-conscious otherwise. I...
I worry I am coming perilously close to violating both of those promises. But still. It is our third wedding anniversary and I am alone in our apartment, my face all mask-tight from tears because, wel...
I was already tired of talking, and I’d said very little.
I walk a loop around the neighborhood, waiting for Nick to appear, to guide me back to our house. The rain spackles me gently, dampening me. I really believe Nick will come after me. I turn toward the...
I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts.
I never worked holidays, because holiday hand jobs are sad for everyone.
I liked the Old Testament spitefulness of the phrase 'got what she deserved.' Sometimes women do.
I know women whose entire personas are woven from a benign mediocrity.
I know women whose entire personas are woven from a benign mediocrity. Their lives are a list of shortcomings: the unappreciative boyfriend, the extra ten pounds, the dismissive boss, the conniving si...
I know the wisdom, that no parents should see their child die, that such an event is like nature spun backward. But it’s the only way to truly keep your child. Kids grow up, they forge more potent all...
I know I am going to be angry – that quick inhale, the lips going tight, the shoulders up, the I so don’t want to be mad but I’m going to be feeling.