1657 8 3
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Sherry and I stand on the sidewalk on a sunny morning, watching her dog take a dump. She's new to the neighborhood and we've just introduced ourselves. The dog, a handsome poodle, does the deed efficiently. “See you later, Gloria!“ Sherry says…
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1657188
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I told him he was just paying for his sins. He gave me a look. "Why me?" he asked.
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165700
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Astrid hadn't always hated him.
They met at the Beta house in the fall of his junior year. Typical Friday night. Stoned, drinking beer. He and Red Chapman sitting in their room playing guitars. The girls in their blues jeans. The guys from the house hi
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165743
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Viewed correctly, nature is an inexhaustible storehouse of clichés. A successful landscape is their pleasing rearrangement.
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165786
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We were just as bourgeois as Bloomingdale’s, one generation past canned ravioli dinners with cheap white bread.
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165743
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"I'll tell you one thing I don't want to see, armed confrontation, leading to domestic warfare."
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16571512
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You should have
marked that territory like a conquistador,
mounted him like an equestrian, left no
what-ifs in your wake.
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165753
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Our mothers died in childbirth. Taken in by the village, our new mothers taught us to wave at the river boats, to sell our trinkets to tourists. They offered us coins of a foreign currency and little pathetic smiles. By nightfall, our fingers bled. Then came…
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165763
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Suds, like gossamer bandages at her wrists, concealed the turbulence below but could not relieve it.
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165688
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I can confirm nothing/
but impressions of the world//
that appear beyond my/
body’s reach.
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165600
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The money stank on the table. Money is dirty she said, one of the dirtiest things. So many people touch it. This pile of brine would not explain its reek, only demanded that we accepted its stench as requisite. It had to have been the cash that stank, prior to its arrival…
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165664
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To hear my name, called out across the Roman stones on a bridge in Regensburg through the languid March drizzle,
was to breathe again as my head burst through the water.
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165665
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The bar sounds grew (as bar sounds will) until everything rushed together -- clinking glass, tinkling ice, laughter and zippers going down then up.
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165673
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Susie watched the record, her mouth agape just slightly, the spinning vinyl unveiling the powerful sound of a voice she'd wanted to hear her whole life.
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165620
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“What was that about?” Keiko asked as she gingerly separated the lily from the wrapping and the baby's breath and examined the flower. Keiko unbound the lily and noticed that the stem seemed strong. The flower no longer needed the support of the wire, and
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165640
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When we were on the road coming back out to California, along the Lewis and Clark trail somewhere near Cardwell, Montana, I remember thinking life was like leaping through flames while reading poetry and drinking rotgut red wine. This was what life was, a
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165621
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People crawling up out of the chimney, then onto the roof, then sliding down it and off over the edge disappearing from view.
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165520
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That put a real crimp in our already crimped sex life. Actually I didn’t mind as much as Allison minded. It made her real grumpy when she didn’t get laid. I could never understand how she could bear so much pain, because she was so small that it was l
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165522
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Next to you, the mother tightens her grip on her stroller. The young teenager tears her gaze from her mobile phone for an instant.
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165574
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165530
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She burst
Into the glass shop
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165521
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Two months after Peter moved out, it opened on the eastern-leaning boulevard, a stone's throw from the water. Caitlin heard about it from a friend at a bar three weeks after that, found that the concept wouldn't quietly settle in her mind, and made plans
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165521
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Naomi saw an ad in one of those slick circulars that came in the mail. ' Wigs by Paula."
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165552
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I considered explaining that the universe is still evolving and changing, but the look on her face said GENESIS ONE.
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165534
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My people rested naked sandwiches on the arms of chairs, and always had an open saucer with half melted butter, a block of Velveeta cheese in the freezer, an open rice cooker.
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165533
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Susan was twenty-four when it happened again, but she had neither the patience nor the attachment to see it through.
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16551310
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I see my siblings once a year when we all show up, as if required by law, to eat Thanksgiving dinner. It is apparent with every bite how much they hate each other.
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165500
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Gone Heather,
with her hands in her hair,
silent for help,
over-involved now scared.
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165542
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So begins your new career in the car service business. In some ways you enjoy it, too. Sitting alone in the cab each day, totally your own boss; you get a surge of excitement inside thinking about the money you'll make in a way that requires so little work. Clearing two…
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165553
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Now that school is back in session, we move through our days like cage fighters, tagging in and out of matches: The Battle of the Bottle, The Diaper Duel, The Pout Bout. So while I'm assembling a casserole for tomorrow, Susan feeds Margot. While she washe
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