Do you believe in God? Not really, he said. No. Then why do we come here? He sucked thoughtfully on his Tums tablet and put his arm around me, draping me under his musty woolen prayer shawl, and then...
Being an official divorce brought late-night channel-surfing up to a staggering new level of depressing. I just wanted to belong to someone already.
A good speech is like a woman's skirt: short enough to hold your attention, long enough to cover the subject
You never know when you’re going to die, but maybe something in you does, some cellular consciousness that’s aware of the cosmic countdown and starts making plans, because on the last night of her lif...
You have to question the originality of your life when it can be captured perfectly in the lyrics of a rock song.
You get married to have an ally against your family, and now I'm heading into the trenches alone.
You can never totally hate someone who sang you to sleep like that, can you? Who calmed you down and eased your fears. You can feel angry and betrayed, but some part of you will always love them for b...
When you’ve been married to someone for a while, you occasionally share these brief psychic moments, and right at that instant I know what she’s going to say just before she says it, even while I’m th...
We should have a handout at the door to speed things along, a brief summary of Dad’s illness and all that transpired in the final days, maybe even a photocopy of his charts and a four-color printout o...
We knew marriage could be difficult in the same way that we knew there were starving children in Africa.
We are all smiling in the picture, three brothers having a grand old time just playing around in the living room, no agendas, no buried resentments or permanent scars. Even under the best of circumsta...
Time doesn't heal as much as it buries things in the undergrowth of your brain, where they lie in wait to ambush you when you least expect it.
There’s nothing more depressing than waking up in your shoes.
The women look each other over as they chat, measuring thighs, bellies, hips, and asses, taking into account body types and recent pregnancies. They silently evaluate and pass judgment, realigning the...
The sky is fucking with me. It's one of those militantly perfect spring days, the kind that seems to be trying just a little too hard, the kind you want to smack in the face, and the sky is bluer than...
Someone should sing, Silver thinks, and then someone does-a low, somewhat hoarse man's voice singing Amazing Grace quietly but with great sincerity. Ruben's eyes grow wide, and almost in the same inst...
People brush past us on the street in endless waves, leaving somewhere, headed somewhere else, laughing, smoking, speaking into cell phones, completely oblivious to the holocaust of an entire world ca...
Our sages say burying someone is considered the truest form of kindness and respect, as the deceased will not be able to thank you for it.That’s kind of funny, actually, since Dad was not exactly pron...
Moments later, there was a loud, protracted crashing sound. Motherfucker! What was that? I just backed through the garage door. Jesus. You okay? I’m fine, she said. The whole damn door came down. I’ll...
If anything, love is just a starting point. Then life intrudes, along with the personal baggage you’ve spent years packing, and things get royally and irrevocably fucked up. You can get bitter or you...