Neanderthal Seeks Human (Knitting in the City, #1)

by Penny Reid

I, on the other hand, always hovered in the space between self-consciousness and sterile detachment; my gracefulness was akin to that of an ostrich. When my head wasn’t in the sand, people were looking at me and probably thinking what a strange bird!

All knitting ceased abruptly. The last time they all stopped knitting mid-row was when a good-looking pizza guy arrived, and they all wanted to give him the tip.

Even in my relationship with Jon we’d both recognized that I required a generous amount of space and alone time in order to behave with appropriate affection when we were together.

She said I owned the clothes of a radiologist and the shoes of an OB/GYN, which is like the medical doctor equivalent of saying that I dressed like a librarian with a propensity for fuck-me boots.

“I’m hungry. You need eggs and bacon for that hangover. And, I’m hoping you’ll tell me more about the defining characteristics of mammals. I’m pretty sure you know more than you’ve let on.”

It wasn’t just his good looks, which verged on angels-singing-on-high miraculous, that unnerved me so—not anymore, at least. If he’d been a gorgeous jerk or a good-looking moron, my reaction would have cooled and normalized rather quickly. Inopportunely, he was not a jerk, and he was most definitely not a moron.

“It’s like having someone else pick your nose or floss your teeth. It requires a lot of coordination and planning. For instance, you can’t do it unless you’ve had a shower within so many hours ahead of time. If you fall out of that time window, then you have to stop reading comics or whatever you’re currently doing, go take a shower, dry off, get dressed, blah blah blah. What a hassle. I think bacteria have the right idea; humans should procreate via binary fission.”

“Some guys just aren’t boyfriend material.” “Well, then, what kind of material are they? Suede?”

Quote of the day: “Friendship is like peeing your pants; everyone can see it but only you can feel it.”

I decided, as I succumbed to sleep, that men should come with manuals, subtitles, and reset buttons.

A little voice in the back of my head said, Don’t trust him! You’re not special! You’re weird and awkward and a bigheaded Neanderthal freak with Medusa hair! He’s confused you with someone else! Almost immediately, I told that voice to eat shit and die.

Life is funny. And I don’t mean just ha-ha funny; I also mean cunning, curious, capricious, and, “The joke’s on you, Batman!” funny.

I thought about it; my head said no and my vagina said yes and my heart said I don’t know! I’m emotionally inhibited! Leave me alone!

“It means my brain finds you more interesting than all the really interesting trivial facts I could be contemplating or researching at present.”