I couldn't see him but I could hear him snoring softly, humming, like a little airplane lost in the clouds.
He got up to put on a record, vinyl was his thing now. He liked the step-by-stepness of it, the process. He held the record the way people hold records, not with his fingers but with his palms. He ble...
But what is the bedrock of civilized society? Libraries, said Elf.
But there is a kindness here, a complicated kindness. You can see it sometimes in the eyes of people when they look at you and don't know what to say.
Being seasick at sea is not the same as being homesick at home.
Things shouldn’t hinge on so very little. Sneeze and you’re highway carnage. Remove one tiny stone and bang, you’re an avalanche statistic. But I guess if you can die without ever understanding how it...
The truth is, I don't have a catchy method of conversing and yet unfortunately suffer of a minute to minute basis the agony of the unexpressed thought.
The other day I found her passport in her drawer when I was putting away my dad's laundered handkerchiefs. I wish I hadn't. For the purpose of my story, she should have it with her. I sat on my dad's...
Shoo the sparrow away and get on with supper. This is the first part of my new life strategy.
Perhaps we need to know more specifically what we are fighting to achieve (not only what we are fighting to destroy), and what actions would be required for such an achievement, even after the fight h...
People here just can't wait to die, it seems. It's the main event. The only reason we're not all snuffed at birth is because that would reduce our suffering by a lifetime.
Later that evening I lay down in Min's empty bed upstairs and pulled her white sheet up over my head. I felt for my kneecaps and hip bones. I lay perfectly still, arms down, palms up. I closed my eyes...
He is the same chap who informed me that there are unusually high numbers of Mennonites who suffer from depression but nobody knows why. I said, Well, thank you for that! As cheerfully as if I was acc...
Books are what save us. Books are what don't save us.
And all our righteousnesses are filthy rags and we all do fade as a leaf and our inequities like the wind have taken us away
You always say oh, that’s so unprofessional as though there’s some definition of professional that’s also a moral imperative for how to behave.
Will carried Zoe on his back and zoomed around on the sidewalk and she laughed and bounced up and down and lost one of her flip-flops so we had to go back and retrace our steps in the dark which I sup...
The city was spread out in the soft darkness, calm after the big thunder and hail storm, still moist and warm like a woman very satisfied in love.
Stuff was happening. Even in Half-a-Life. Little things, but it all added up to something big. To our lives. It was happening all along. These were our lives. This was it. My mom was hanging onto the...
She told me that the brain is built to forget things as we continue to live, that memories are meant to fade and disintegrate, that skin, so protective in the beginning because it has to be to protect...