2338 17 11
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Balling my fists, I banged them on the retro-formica tabletop. The taste of pufferfish balls in an oleander-infused reduction with a seaweed and pomegranate side-salad tossed in a geranium-rottweiler vinaigrette rose in my throat.
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233811
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One Overcoat, grey striped; One Suit, fur trimmed, red velvet; One Evening gown and jacket, cretonne; One Negligee brocade; One Costume evening gown; Seven Straw hats; Four Shirts for riding habits; Four Collars for riding habits; One Negligee, green crep
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233788
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Q: “How many husbands have you had, Mrs. Guggenheim?”
A: “D’you mean my own, or other people’s?”
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233431
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I became a fool for Adrienne Parker the first moment I set eyes on her.
Whenever Parker walked into Oliveira's Cafe my breath would stop. I'd try turning away, then find my gaze locked on her face. Maybe it was her bare arms that I found so appealing
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23323210
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At the bar, she told me her name was Natasha, but she doesn’t look like one. She’s too thin and flighty for one thing. And all Natashas have a Russian accent and talk of the Motherland as if it were never cold and before it turned to borderlines and j
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233230
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keep your fiberwigs in check
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233141
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As I sat down finally, finally to write,
some brooding heretical hour of the night, with my ballpoint in hand, poised to blot page, Time gathered momentum, although I did not age...
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232944
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I hear all the static in her head, all the fuzzy threads from half a mile away. She hates dirt. She hates the couples who come in and talk stupid lies at each other. It's so simple with her. I ask what she likes. The feeling of soft wool on her bare nippl
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232773
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Construct my eulogy with dialogue snippets culled from old Brat Pack movies and deliver them with a straight face.
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23252317
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In the 15 years that I've worked at my local public library, I've learned that we librarians do plenty of things for our patrons that aren't in our job descriptions. After a patron asked me to change her flat tire, and another wanted to check out our pencil sharpener,…
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23252521
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“Your sister is a slut,” said Ma to me over supper.
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232523
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Suddenly it’s as though a wild creature has swung in from a tree through an open skylight. Everyone in the place recoils and looks around to see if there might be others like her. But it’s just her.
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23242116
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The afternoon my little sister won her first U.S. Open, I was also busy, having strenuous sex with David Solemn, a man I’d met earlier that morning at Dunkin Donuts. We did it on the white living room carpet in my parent’s new Connecticut house while
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23231911
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My handwriting, slow in coming over many years, is good for lists, but I don't want to read sentences or write in it. Amber is on a list I wrote of things I want to remember of Russia: Rasputin's death and Peter the Great (6'7”). One of my lists I read as a poem in…
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2320149
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Can’t seem to put your clothes on today. You’re wandering in the little closet of your mind again, picking at socks that won’t stay up, shirts that are always too big -
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23195227
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The gun is heavy. The tiny women hold it in both hands.
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23193617
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Eat slowly. Wait. Do not bring reading material. Do not bring headphones. Avoid distractions.
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231831
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Lying there, with the terrible screech emanating from his chest, blaring from his open mouth, he thinks about jet planes and jack hammers and nuclear explosions. He doesn't have quiet thoughts.
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2315178
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“You don't know what it's like, to be an old man, to be alone man, behind blue eyes,” he said to the downtown city sidewalk. The sidewalk said nothing. People with someplace to go rushed by him, not stopping.
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23122121
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So there are these teenagers and they're all dying of cancer, or at least were dying of cancer, or might be dying of cancer, and then a couple of them fall in love and lose their virginity to each other, and these teens, they're all smart and charming and only a little…
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231221
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The following day, I was so nervous that I decided to have a drink to keep a lid on my nerves. It wasn't even noon yet. They say that's when you know it's getting bad, and that drinking has become a problem. But I hadn't gone out with anyone in over fi
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231140
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Mrs. Bigelow loaned Tessa a black tulle maid’s uniform and helped her pin it in at the sides. She tied on Tessa the stiff white apron. Slippery, pale, opaque stockings of real silk oozed through the girl’s fingers, secured by a heavy satin garter belt
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2310108
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Fritz Lang. Even before I ever met the miserable son of a bitch, with his monocle and superior airs, I hated him. In person, he was an insufferable asshole.
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23102216
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The movies he liked best were the ones in which white people played Asian leads. Since his girlfriend had left, that Barry was adopted had seemed to become more of a fact.
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23092320
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I have bathed in patchouli oil and my heavy hair is lustrous from brushing. I am wearing my gold ankle bracelets with the ruby charms that my love gave me when we had been married one year. My robe is fuchsia silk and under it I wear black satin…
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230921
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The child began to think only of the reason for being there in the cave, summoned up patience and continued to wait...
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23071812
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She looked up, blinked. Fuck are you? I shook my head. Nobody you’ll remember, I said.
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2307309
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23023719
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There's a story of you who says to go on, to walk the room, to pretend to contemplate. Promises that if you lift your hand your head will follow. Assures you when your bones reignite there will be day, there will be night, and you'll know which is which. Don't worry about…
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23012215
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Dear End of the World. We're having a party. Stop by if you're in the neighborhood.
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