Theft by Finding: Diar...
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He said he wasn’t drunk now but would definitely be arrested if they gave him a Breathalyzer.
No matter where you go, you cannot escape the Bee Gees,
Lesson: Never be where you don’t want to be on acid.
In current events, a sixteen-year-old in San Diego opened fire on an elementary school playground with an M16 and 250 rounds of ammunition.
The last time I was up at five was because I hadn’t gone to bed yet.
There was an accident yesterday at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, so a lot of people talked about it.
“Sure, some people are nice. Real nice. Nice like carpets so you can walk all over them.”
May 17, 1979 Raleigh Gas in four states is now selling for over $1 a gallon.
July 3, 1981 Raleigh There is a new cancer that strikes only homosexual men. I heard about it on the radio tonight.
He speaks combat Greek, and the people he talks to speak it back.
There are a lot of blind people in Athens.
wondering as I did so whether or not they allowed blacks. They can’t say they don’t, of course, but in the short time I’ve been here I haven’t noticed any black people coming or going. They’re really not free to live where they want in this town.
January 6, 1984 Chicago, Illinois Now I am in Chicago.
Finally he was hit by a train while walking, which is strange because trains don’t generally sneak up on people. For the most part, barring a derailment, you know exactly where to find them.
October 20, 1985 Chicago On Thursday the Cherokee Nation elected their first woman leader. Her name is Wilma Mankiller.
She’s just burning up with her own thoughts.
Amy did this bit where she pretends she’s super-popular. “Hey, Sandy, great haircut!” she shouted at a stranger while waving. “Jim, I’ll call you!” “Hi, Nancy. Gotta go.” “Mike, yes, this is my sister.”
Delinquent style is timeless. Real trouble doesn’t walk around with a ponytail. It doesn’t have a Mohawk or special shoelace patterns. Real trouble has a bad complexion and a Windbreaker.
“A vicious hermaphrodite wants to control the country, and only two people stand in his way. [Only two?]
It was another of those programs about how people with station wagons solve problems.
The word love was replaced by a heart shape I’m guessing they’ll put on the typewriter keyboard any day now, right beside the exclamation point.
The article says he belongs to a skinhead group and has tattoos, which is strange, I think, because Jews in concentration camps had shaved heads and tattoos. You’d think the anti-Semites would go for a different look.
They call out concerning all the various parts of her they’d like to have access to. Men on bikes, on the street, on the train. I forget how much crap women have to put up with.
October 1, 1988 Chicago Charles Addams died two days ago.
January 19, 1989 Chicago This is the last day of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, and on All Things Considered they asked a variety of people how he had affected their lives. The person I most identified with said that after the past eight years, she will never trust a Republican again.
February 13, 1989 Chicago Tonight at Barbara’s Bookstore, Tobias Wolff read from his new memoir, This Boy’s Life.
On the radio I learned that Keith Haring died of AIDS.
April 6, 1990 Chicago Sarah Vaughan died three days ago. I have always loved her.
August 30, 1990 Raleigh I told Melina, my parents’ Great Dane, that we were going to have her put to sleep on Saturday, and Dad got super-angry. As if she could understand me! So I said to her, “OK, we’ll wait until Monday.” This made him even angrier, and he ordered me to leave his house.
Like many good biography subjects, she became a mess toward the end of her life.
Once every hour I’d go to the bar car for a cigarette and listen to the drunks, who were always saying something like “When I say you’re a friend, you’re a motherfucking friend. I’m not bullshitting you, man.”
At five I met with Lily, who paid me to help her carry a ladder. We picked it up on Canal Street, at the loft of a guy named Hugh and his two roommates, Scott and Leslie.
On Friday night I met Lily on Jane Street and we carried the ladder back to Hugh’s place on Canal. I was excited to be there and decided to have a crush on him.
November 14, 1990 New York Everyone on earth knows I’m an elf. Everyone.
February 24, 1991 New York Today the United States began its ground war in Kuwait. Saddam Hussein said the American troops would drown in their own blood, but they met no opposition and took five thousand prisoners.
This spring I am, if I’m not mistaken, in love.
November 14, 1991 Raleigh Mom died last night, suddenly, of pneumonia brought on by her chemotherapy.
When it happened, Hugh and I were in our kitchen in New York. He was making manicotti and talking about a wooden chicken he’d bought when I got socked by the weirdest feeling. I thought that Hugh was going to die, and I must have said something because he accused me of being dramatic.
Yesterday a woman had her son pee into a cup, which of course tipped over. “That’s fine,” I said, “but Santa’s also going to need a stool sample.”
March 19, 1992 New York Hugh and I went to Westport, Connecticut, and picked up two tuxedo cats that used to belong to the actress Sandy Dennis, who recently died of ovarian cancer.
Tonya Harding really is something else. I resisted the story until I saw a picture of her. With her fierce makeup, she looks like a child’s drawing of an angry babysitter. Whatever else, she’s succeeded in capturing my imagination. She doesn’t strike me as mean. Rather, she’s seems like the type to whom everything is unfair.
Other people’s pain is uninteresting. My own, though, is spellbinding.
Hugh and I went to Dixon Place and now I want to be reimbursed for those two hours of my life.
January 7, 1998 New York I went to deliver Helen her chicken cutlets and she sang “I Got You, Babe” in honor of Sonny Bono, who died two days ago
January 20, 1998 New York The woman below us, Franny, died last night, a few months shy of her 106th birthday. Helen told me about it and said, “My mother died when she was forty-six!
January 26, 1998 New York While straight men watched the Super Bowl on NBC, the other networks fought it out for the women and homosexuals.
next to positive 01/26/1998 was a Monday
were sitting at an outdoor table when an elderly man approached and asked if we could help him lower a plant into a hole he’d just dug. It was a strange and unexpected request, so we said yes
My wife really likes you.” He asked if he could have my autograph and I was so flattered. I mean, here he was, a big-time pot dealer, and he wanted my autograph?
May 12, 1998 New York Helen died the other night at six o’clock, five days after being transferred to
why write “I went to the store with a friend” when, without relying on the dictionary, I can say “I visited the slaughterhouse with my godfather and a small monkey”?
