Ms. Smartarse > Recent Status Updates

After a while, we sat on one of the three sofas that were set up to form an isosceles triangle in the middle of the room. The interior decorator had come up with this and Ben didn't want to risk me messing it up. He would scrupulously sit on a different one each day, so he'd use them up equally.

"So it seems that each one of you was alone at the time of the murder. Which in fact means that NONE of you, not ONE of you, has an alibi!"

Cara supplied another gasp, but she put far too much into it and started to cough. Pip patted her on the back.

"Don't tell them the only reason you started this project was because you fancied me. You know, think of a more noble reason".
"Get out of here."
"Don't feel bad. You couldn't help yourself, I'm ravishing," he grinned. "Get it? Ravi-shing. Ravi Singh."

"I remember you were about five at the time and always wore a Pikachu onesie with a tutu."
"Can you believe that trend never caught on?"
"Yeah, well, Van Gogh's work was unappreciated in his own time as well."

#FemiDurandIsMissing has been sidelined by #NaijaJollofvsKenyanJollof. People may be drawn to the macabre, but never for very long, and so news of Femi's disappearance has been trumped by conversations about which country's jollof rice rice is better.

Ayoola inherited the knife from him (and by "inherited" I mean she took it from his possessions before his body was cold in the ground).

As far as the mass of voting morons is concerned, while you're in office, you'll be the worst single president they've ever had.

The city is asleep, and we are all stumbling through the city's dream.

"What's step two?"
"That would be compliment on the radiance of her complexion, or perhaps the lustre of her eyes."
"Madam, your eyers are as brown as, uh. I don't know. Bread?"
"Bread?"
"I couldn't think of anything else brown. Hot chocolate? A good beef stew?"
"Stop talking now. And by that I meant: maybe I should send for an etiquette guide, my lord".

"You're a [smuggler], and if I don't like that, I oughtn't be here."
"Does that mean you like it?"
"No, it means I oughtn't be here. Unfortunately, I have very poor judgement, and you are unreasonably lovely."

It's odd to view the bitter old woman anew. For the first time I actually feel sorry for the desperation and shame that must have tortured her. How much it must've cost her to keep her secret even from her husband and son.

We're all hunting something, Tomé's words reverberate in my mind. Even if only money, fame or acknowledgement.
Or your ex-wife, because you can't stand that she left you, I add silently. Along with your daughter, whom you considered your personal property.

I hadn't realised just how rusty my French had become. I could clearly hear the wooden German accent as I made small talk with the cashiers. Still, being surrounded by this language feels surprisingly good.

Renate is anything but a shy violet, however the fact that I keep finding porn collections on a lot of computers has obviously made her lose faith in inocent family men.

"(...)So I presume she said nothing to you about it?"
"Not a word. But Alicia and I never talked much, you know. She was always pretty silent. We all were, as a family. I remember Alicia saying how weird it was - she'd go to friends' houses and see other families laugh and joke and have conversations about things, and our house was so silent."

Ruth used to say that too few therapists were skilled or intuitive - most were just plumbers.

The whole time, I kept glancing at the lifeless eyes in Gabriel's portrait. They were staring at me, burning into me. I had to turn away. But I could still feel them watching.

My heart warmed. That was one of the moments when I clearly knew I had the right job.

With each passing day, I became more confident about my ability to take on such a responsibility. I did indeed develop quickly, and realised just how good self-confidence and personal responsibility felt.

"We're not coming to fight an enclave war," Aadhya had said in exasperation; the two of them had already been in a taxi on the way to the airport. "We're coming to help you STOP one."
"And what are you even planning to do?" I'd demanded.
"We'll let you know soon as you tell us what YOU'RE planning," Aadhya retorted, and hung up on me.

"I have confidence that you will succeed," he added, with apparent sincerity. How very nice for him. I would have preferred if he'd told me sneeringly that I was a fool and I wasn't going to get on at all; I always do my best work angry.

But it wasn't anything like moving through the forgotten places, halfway in the void. It was the opposite, as though we were moving deeper into the REAL, into a place that didn't want to allow any magic at all, and was only grudgingly letting us past while it looked the other way.

All of magic essentially involves sneaking something you want past reality while it's distracted and looking the other way

I loathe push-ups; I'd been half wishing someone would come and give me something else to do, or at least a good shove, and Liesel was certainly the woman for that. But I went all the way to fifty before I let myself get up again, defiantly

*cue outraged scream*

It is not a complex problem to appear nice to people! You identify the most popular targets in each of your classes, learn what they value about themselves, and give them a minimum of three relevant compliments each week. So long as they think you are agreeable, others will follow their lead!

Artifice is fundamentally about giving the universe a long and complicated story complete with attractive props in order to coax it to accommodate your wishes. I'm really more about shouting the universe into compliance with me.

It was one thing for the school to be out to get me, which I think all of us secretly feel is the case from the moment we arrive, and another for the school to be out to get ONLY me, to the exclusion of literally everyone else...

Clarita was going, so was David Pires, the still-resentful salutorian, saluditorian, whatever you call the number two besides "not the valedictorian", which was in fact exactly what I was inclined call him.