You've Been So Lucky Already: A Memoir

by Alethea Black

Also, the frequency with which he released certain emissions from the ass in your presence: you did not like that. You realize that sometimes these things need to happen in the presence of another person, and you’d even consider a small amount of that to be a kind of compliment. But this order of magnitude was no compliment and, in fact, may have indicated some sort of dietary adjustment was in order.

My first thought is: Oh my God I’m never getting on another plane for as long as I live. And my second thought is: Oh my God my connecting flight takes off in twenty minutes.

The postman waits until you’re finished before he speaks. “Honey,” he says, flashing his big postman grin, “when it ain’t your time, you can’t make it happen. And when it is your time, you can’t stop it.”

When I was little, I found her to be distasteful, like a woman on fire. But now that I’ve become a woman on fire myself, I realize it’s not only tasteful but necessary. A woman on fire is a woman who speaks, who is not cowed, who is not too polite, but who takes the reins of her life into her hands and blazes brightly.