Love, Story

I loved the opening line and I love this, I start laughing at the first paragraph and don't stop, but there are real-real things along the way.

Clever, engaging, and satisfying. (Note the commas.)In particular, great opening. Another favorite place: where the arguing is fun and then not. Finally, loved that the commas appear at the end (and in the title!) Thanks.

Got to love any view that gives fiction pride of place among all the essentials. Good to see the philistine sent down the road too. Loved the thought of Tristam Shandy and Gravity's Rainbow as "more apt means of torture." A delightful piece all in all.

Great opening! Made me smile!

This is awesome, really well done. (And now I'm suddenly so aware of my commas!)

"I wrote: It was fiction," is genius. I'll be back to read again.

LOVE that opening line. I also really like that you say so much with punctuation.

great piece! wonderful opening and you mention leguin in the last paragraph which is really all i need to know...great dynamic at play here.

Funny and wise piece of writing. Like this line, a place/time in relationships you describe so well: We argued over religion and science and politics and it was fun.

Later we argued over religion and science and politics and went to bed sour and silent.

Instructive too...if you don't first succeed with Pynchon or Sterne, then drop some Abba to drive the point home.

A delight to read, Michelle :)

Good story. I like punctuation, though--esp. periods.

I wrote: It was fiction. --when it hits, is perfect

and living with insufficient punctuation--hilarious and biting.

this is a fun, trip

Thanks, all! As I say, this is "fiction lite" but I love it that so many can share the pain of a comma-less world (or at least the humor)! And sorry if I offended any ABBA fans -- I've been forced by my kids to listen to the soundtrack from Mamma Mia one too many times.

Believe it or not, this story originated from a real conversation nearly a year ago (yes, I've been stewing), where a fellow of particular arrogance actually said those three unsettling words (though none of the rest of the story is true).

mmm - ABBA, perhaps Shandy won't work, the guy is inured to torture. Love the way you use commas in the new relationship. Enjoyed a lot.

Love this. And the Abba lyrics made me laugh. Thank you for making a case for the love of (prose) fiction, and for entertaining me :)

I wrote: It was fiction.

So great. What a fun piece.

Walter, Kelli, Sara --
Thanks for the comments. You are of course right, Walter -- he probably didn't read that damn Minghella script either! But I love the idea of that play, really want to see it sometime, with the one woman sitting silent...

Really fun, and well crafted. Favorite line "..Gravity's Rainbow as torture.." Not easy riding a one trick pony for 450 words but the honest sentiment behind the sketch came through loud and clear. And what a smart ending.

Good opening and nice wrap-up at the end.

This is fabulous. Great start. May your characters' current argument "over religion and science and politics" never sour.

Thank you, Derek, Matthew, and Beate. I think those two at the end are on the right track. Hope so, anyway.

Love this. Reminds me trying to make love work with a man who didn't like ice cream. So wrong.

I smiled wide the whole read through, then swooped in for another go-round. LOL at the Pynchom reference (beautamous torture indeed). Peace...

Wonderful, anda great fit for Metazen.

I have two Aunts. One likes "Mamma Mia" and has seen the musical many times. The other says that's all you need to know about Aunt #1.

Great.

Moving and funny. Extra credit for referencing Adams and Pynchon.

Great short-short that accomplishes a huge amount in a compact space. I'll come back to this one again and again. It taught me a lot about storytelling. Thanks.

The voice here is so great, just love the pacing and the details of their on then off life--
great work

Thanks to all of you who have recently come to this story; now I will come find you!

Linda -- how screwed up we are sometimes! Love without ice cream??

David -- love the story of your aunts. That could be a great opening as well!

Michelle,

So enjoyed this. Long ago I dumped a guy who wanted me to defend "reading fiction"!

i enjoy this. i love being determined not to like somebody.

A strong piece of writing, and a wonderful read. Great piece.

Smooth. And you have read Last Chance to See, you know the kakapo. What else is there?

"it was fiction."

Beautifully told. I love it

Thanks so much, Cherise, Frank, Sam, Ajay, Ashwin, Mercy. For a brief and hilarious glimpse at the kakapo, see: http://www.digyourowngrave.com/last-chance-to-see-kakapo-mating/

Michelle, thank you for the read. I need me a man who can make a mean pizza crust!

I look forward to reading more of your work.

Ha! at the kakapoo gone wild video. Not sure how it fits with my re-reading the story. AH! seduced by the dulcet strains of ABBA! Or Cap'n/Tenelle. Not The Carpenters.

Michelle, You capture something here, beautifully. And I love the absence of commas in the first part.

Mighty fine, mighty fine, Michelle!

Ethel, Nicholas, Stephanie, and Walt (as alwasy): thanks for the comments! So glad you liked the story, it seems to touch a chord in a lot of us...

Very nice Michelle! A great story about passion! After reading, I re-read the title and laughed.

I like the writing style here.

i love the tone of this, the things you do in the early fuck days, the bubble gum pop. she has a real credibility of how did this happen to me? great and thoroughly believable

"I'm living with insufficient punctuation"--Amen to that.

This from a narrator who says, "I don't use commas"!

I love that trajectory. Good story, Michelle! Enjoyed it very much. Love all the cultural references.

Michelle, just found this. Rich, it is and salted, peppered nicely.

A late fav.

Michelle, sorry I'm late to the party. I missed this on Metazen. It's brilliant and wierd and funny.

I absolutely LOVE this, and one of my favorite first paragraphs in a long time.

Love, this. :)

There are so many great turns of phrase in this:

'Salty skin,' 'sour and silent,' 'fuck-happy.'

(I'm suspicious of people who don't read fiction. I think it's some essential difference in world-views.)

The mention of the new relationship in the second section and 'We breathe air, make love, and play music loud' felt like a wonderful conclusion - and respite. Just freer and open and lovely.

Oh. And fav!

With rises and falls...terrific piece.

I love this! Fav! The voice grabbed me from the opening line and didn't let go.

What can I say? Except that I love pasta, seafood, commas – and your story, Michelle. Fave.

This is really wonderful. I like life without commas. It forces me to organize as I live (in this case as I read). Produces its own tension. What perfect details. And how COULD one love an Abba fan?
Wow.

The first paragraph made me laugh out loud. Way too much fun. I could have lived without the last graf because I loved "...a man who doesn't believe in fiction but models his lovelife on bubble gum pop." so much, but yah, fave.

FYI - selected this as my favourite flash of 2010 for michael solender's goodbye/hello at the NOT. flawnt would have agreed, i think. hard choice among so much wonderful flash this year.

I love that you don't use commas!

Delightful! The narrator's confidence and humor made this story. Especially loved the windy, comma-less sentences and the absence of quotation marks: They added a subtle dimension to the narrator's quirky personality. Thank you!

Without fiction, life was fiction. With fiction, it was real. Wonderful story. Fave*.

So good, and an extra that you used no commas until you made the shift.

Thanks for your comments on "Flesh."

Life is rhythm. Fiction is a subset of life founded on rhythm with greater consistency and more believablility. Thanks for tickling this out of my skull.

Thanks for the recent comments and reads. Great meeting you here, Ginnah and Willie. Keep the rhythms flowing, with and without commas of course.

I am so late to this party that I should be sent to bed without supper. How did I not read this sooner?
This is intelligent, pleasurable writing. And truthful. You hit the trifecta! *

I never thought a lack of punctuation could be so entertaining. Loved "It was fiction." And I'm so glad to hear that someone else considers Gravity's Rainbow torture.

There is so much to love about this story. I enjoyed it so much, that I was pretty sure I wrote it for a while.

I kept copy lines to paste here, to show what was my favorite, then I'd read another and copy that. I finally settled on "He replied with an email: What happened to our love? It used to be so good.

I wrote: It was fiction."

I'm going to sit with that comeback all day today.

I even enjoyed the use of commas in the ending lines. I don't think there is one thing about this piece that didn't work (except maybe the names of writers and books that I never heard of, but I can forgive that. How could you know).

I am going to follow you, curse you a bit, and try to raise the bar on my own writing.