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I thought I was seeing fur underwear until I realized it was his hairy ass showing.
claiming that her friend needed to cut in line because she has asthma. “Oh, yeah, well, my baby’s got asthma too,” a black woman said. “Oh, really, where’s the baby?” The black woman pointed to her stomach. “In here.”
The moment we saw Mom, we forgot about our guests. They mumbled something on their way out—“Merry Christmas,” or maybe “Your kitchen is on fire,” whatever.
First, there’s a ferret whose goal in life was to escape his cage and murder the guinea pigs, which he did.
Someone stopped Mitch on the street last night and said, “I need another seventy-five cents so I can buy a cheeseburger. How about helping me?” Mitch said, “Get it without the cheese,” and continued walking.
That is exactly why you don’t want people staying in your apartment when you’re not there, or even when you are, really.
If it were possible to crossbreed like that, the world would be full of talking goats and sheep who could shear their own wool.
Chris sent the galleys by messenger, and, reading them over, I noticed four repetitions of the phrase “we’re hoping.” I pointed this out on the phone yesterday and he said, “Man, you’re like a self-cleaning oven!”
I saw a kid, maybe ten years old, jerking his head every fifteen seconds or so. It was like seeing myself as a boy. His father said, “Aaron, I’m warning you…” I wanted to rush over and scoop the kid up.
Then the two live ones ran over and clutched this metal box. I don’t know what was in it but remember thinking, That box means something to those two aliens.”
This is what happens when you choose the title Naked over, say, Quiet Dignity.
Making it worse, I had to sit through another endless preview for Titanic. Who do they think is going to see that movie?
announced with genuine excitement that he was taking me to a restaurant called Johnny Rockets for lunch.
I wondered what he was doing with her, but by the time we hit Broome Street, I wondered what she was doing with him.
One station offered a prize to whoever could give the scandal the best name. I’m sick of attaching the suffix -gate to everything, though it’s hard to sneeze at either Fornigate or Tailgate, the top two contenders. Who knows what will come of it.
I’d hate it if the person selling me pot in the middle of the day was super-articulate. That would make me feel like even more of a loser.
“I can’t believe…your maid couldn’t…handle this on her own,” Ken said, gasping for air. “Mine could carry two…trees and still manage to…breast-feed…the children.”
that’s really not the sort of thing that forces you out of bed at five a.m. I could be wrong, but don’t Christmas trees pretty much take care of themselves?
They’re in the store and he tells her to wait by the door while he stands beside “the Jewish piano.”
That’s what being famous gets you in New York: change.
I would have given them the New York they imagine, the one where you can’t leave your house without seeing Madonna and Michael Jackson breast-feeding their babies.
I worried I might be the worst, but that honor goes to an Australian who accepted a phone call during class, braying, “Bonjour! No, it’s me. I’m in French class!”
I thought of the coming year in France and wondered when I’d next understand everything a stranger was saying to me.
a dozen more people headed to the front. Either the train from Lourdes had just pulled up or owning a cell phone and a little too much gold jewelry are now considered handicaps by the French government.
By the end of class, my brain felt like it had been kicked.
But 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”?
From the next room I will hear my ancient French teacher throwing chalk against the wall. I will say, ‘Stop. That’s enough!’ And she will criticize my pronunciation.”
I’d written, for example, “You will complain all the time, day and night.” Her comment read, in angry red pen, “Pick one or the other. You don’t need both.”
Today we moved into the tense you use when ordering someone around.
The way it is, I could buy either a decent used car or some kid’s head. It’s twice the cost of Hugh’s computer and half the price of a hysterectomy.
That sounds like a sentence I’d write for class, but it’s true.
my French was so bad I couldn’t even describe them. In the end I drew a picture and the woman looked at it, responding with what I guessed was “This is a drugstore. We have no surfboards here.” It really was a bad picture. My next attempt was even worse and resembled a flying carpet.
Today the teacher called me a sadist. I tried to say that was like the pot calling the kettle black but came out with something closer to “That is like a pan saying to a dark pan, ‘You are a pan.’”
Because the high schoolers want more teachers, they sometimes need to overturn cars and destroy phone booths.
This is going to be a long eight days. December 31, 1998 Paris Last night, shortly after dinner, my father’s head caught on fire.
we were asked to identify the class of people represented in a comic strip she gave us. I said I thought they were working class. When asked why, I pointed out the Jesus snow globe displayed atop their television set.
She later told me, in English, that she hated me. I had used falloir in the subjunctive rather than the imparfait, so I guess I deserved it.
we’re supposed to listen to the radio and talk in class about what we heard. Luis brought up the forty-some bodies that were just discovered in Kosovo and the teacher listened, then said, “Now tell me what happened that was even worse.”
“I’m not a misogynist, I’m a misanthrope. I hate everyone equally.”
came out in Esquire. I wish I hadn’t published it. I meant it at the time, but since then things have changed.
If it shows in my face that I drink, mustn’t it eventually show that I don’t anymore?
