I’m serious. You know how, in court, they talk about the CSI effect? Like, everyone on the jury has watched so much CSI that they believe science can prove anything? Yeah. Well, I think there’s an Evi...
I’ll be interested to hear what the swine has to say for himself, he says. Desi rarely says jackfuck or shitbag; he says swine, which sounds more poisonous on his lips.
I’d always liked our inside jokes the best—they made me feel more connected to Amy than any amount of confessional truth-telling or passionate lovemaking or talk-till-sunrising.
It’s every asshole’s mantra: I married a psycho bitch. But I got a small, nasty bite of gratification: I really did marry a genuine, bona fide psycho bitch. Nick, meet your wife: the world’s foremost...
It’s becoming quite a well-known disease. Popular. People love new and creepy. I remember when anorexia hit in the eighties. The more TV movies on it, the more girls starved themselves.
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
It's not easy, pairing yourself off with someone forever. It's an admirable thing, and I'm glad you're both doing it, but, boy-oh-girl-oh, there will be days you wish you'd never done it. And those wi...
It's a rented house right along the Mississippi River, a house that screams Suburban Nouveau Riche, the kind of place I aspired to as a kid from my split-level, shag-carpet side of town. The kind of h...
It was true, Ben at age two was an astonishing thing. He’d demand love outright, grab at a breast or an arm, but as soon as he had enough affection, and that came quickly, he’d go completely limp, pla...
It is from Costco. I have learned about bulk shopping in my four weeks as a Mississippi River resident. Republicans go to Sam’s Club, Democrats go to Costco. But everyone buys bulk
In truth, I wanted her to read my mind so I didn’t have to stoop to the womanly art of articulation.
In New York it’s not three or four A.M. that’s the quiet time—there are too many bar stragglers, calling out to each other as they collapse into taxis, yelping into their cell phones as they frantical...
If she were alive, someone would need to return her. If she were dead, nature would have to give her up.
I've always found my wife a bit dazzling, in the purest sense of the word: to lose clear vision, especially from looking at bright light. It was enough to be near her and hear her talk, it didn't alwa...
I would rather be a librarian, but I worry about the job security. Books may be temporary; dicks are forever. The
I wasn’t entirely sure about Meredith’s assessment. Some people would love to have the killer be a guy born and raised in Wind Gap. Someone they went fishing with once, someone they were in Cub Scouts...
I was boozing too much, but never to the point of drunkenness, I reasoned with myself. I needed just a nip. I’ve always been partial to the image of liquor as lubrication—a layer of protection from al...
I waited patiently - years - for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with eac...
I think it's fair to say I am a writer. I'm using this journal to get better: to hone my skills, to collect details and observations. To show don't tell and all that other writerly crap.
I stand in the middle of my room and debate not answering. Bang bang bang. I understand now why so many horror movies use that device—the mysterious knock on the door—because it has the weight of a ni...