Uncommon Type: Some Stories

by Tom Hanks

The flag would remind MDash that his adoptive nation is never finished building itself—that good citizens have a place somewhere in her fruited plain just as more stars can fit in the blue field above those red and white stripes.

“I admire that about you. Smart. Caring. Easygoing to the point of sloth.” “You’ve gone from compliments to insults.” “Change sloth to languorousness,” she said, sipping wine. “Point is I like you.”

Flirting is fishing. Maybe you hook up, maybe you don’t. Propositioning is the first step in closing a deal.”

I am one of those lazy-butt loners who can poke my way through a day and never feel a second has been wasted.

In the time I spend lollygagging over my whites and colors, Anna will drywall her attic, prepare her taxes, make her own fresh pasta, and start up a clothing exchange on the Internet.

Steve Wong, Anna, and I were in the bleachers, witnessing the naturalization of a sea of immigrants, their skins all the different colors of human nature.

A girlfriend changes a man from the shoes he exercises in right up to how he cuts his hair

Being Anna’s boyfriend was like training to be a Navy SEAL while working full-time in an Amazon fulfillment center in the Oklahoma Panhandle in tornado season. Something was going on every moment of every day. My 2:30 naps were a thing of the past.

“To circle the globe, a ship needs only a sail, a wheel, a compass, and a clock.”

You and her pairing off is like a story line from season eleven when the network is trying to keep us on the air.”

There was not a smidgen of rancor in her voice, neither judgment nor disappointment. She said it straight out of her face in a way I couldn’t.

A towheaded girl was inspecting Sharri’s mouth like an advance agent for the tooth fairy giving an estimate of what to expect.

“They look normal.” “Normal is a setting on a washing machine.”

I think NYC comes off way better on TV and in the movies, when a taxi is just a whistle away and superheroes save the day. In the real world (ours) every day in Gotham is a little like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and a lot like Baggage Claim after a long, crowded flight.

“Disappointing your parents is the first thing to do when you come to New York.”

The stairs of the Big Jet pop open, and there is F.X.R. in clothes he thinks the common people wear—a fruity-looking western shirt with too much piping tucked into an old pair of Jordache designer jeans, a belt with a huge Marlboro cigarettes belt buckle, and flame-red cowboy boots. He wears a too-perfectly-broken-in John Deere cap and has a straw cowboy hat in his hand.

It’s good for the soul to come down from the mountaintop sometimes, Ms. Mercury. Otherwise, all you see are the tops of mountains. I should put that in a memo to all the employees.

A flash flood begins with a drop of rain on stone.