2108 10 11
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the brand we like best and buy whether it's on sale or not. Surely there is another blue cheese dressing that is sold, possibly in San Francisco and made in a Berkeley basement by hippies who scrape together all of their change twice a year and buy cheese from an ancient…
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2108 7 5
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When I was fifteen and we were moving to Mississippi, my boyfriend in Canada told me I was going to live in the swamp with the alligators. I didn’t understand why my father would pick such a hick place. Rob gave me his cricket bat to hang over my bed, a
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2108 14 11
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She was petite, pear-shaped, white, the girlfriend of a friend who'd done his degree in Russian Literature, but that's not the only reason I liked him. The husband I had for a while traveled whether he needed to or not and so I'd go with Julie and Phillip to movies,…
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2108 0 0
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The Sentinels flew low and through the woods. Carefully navigating their way around the trees, they heard the sound of birds chirping and frogs croaking in the morning.
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2107 8 6
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Sal, a finder of misplaced objects notices the sunglasses, flip flops and boxers left on the pathway heading to the beach. They are his gifts today, so gallant is he of these ‘strays’ seeking ownership. He tries the glasses on first and feels dizzy.
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2107 6 5
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In my own case, before Ellen, of course there was someone else. She—well, she was someone who I felt as if I’d always known and always would. And I think she felt the same about me.
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2107 9 3
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Our city is really two cities, conjoined. One lives during the day, the other at night. Those who live and breathe daytime air call the city by one name, a name which evokes the relative newness of the place, a name with words just barely invented.…
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2107 2 0
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Left, I see parkland and cyclists and sun. Right: picnic blankets, naked men and lunchtime assignations.
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2107 10 4
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I feel a strange loneliness for her...I think I will go to the beach, and forgive it for its sharp sand and lack of trees.
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2107 0 1
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“Charlie was right about you, Nan,” she said in a voice of pure defeat. “You are a gentle spirit. And probably too good for people like us.”
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2107 13 6
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You are a boy with a birthday bike smiling like our son, standing in a photograph surrounded by other sons, who turn rocks over and over, who keep snakes in plastic bread bags, who find the bones of something wild in the woods. You smile that way still.
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2106 10 9
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When you think I'm not looking,
I always am.
You say it's like nicotine, your best analogy as a non-smoker.
The kind of hit that is hard to live without and isn't it human nature,
you ponder.
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2106 1 0
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Daddy? Yes, hun. What do you think about life? Did you ask your mother? I'm asking you. (lowers newspaper) Well, (squinting eyes) life gives you so much pumpkin. ! and (like a whip) and..? (brows almost touching the hairline)…
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2106 24 16
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I stared out the window, the fog creeped up the Avenues like a spectator.
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2106 11 4
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Everything is illuminated. If anyone is watching, we look happy.
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2106 9 10
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No one knows that, while the ex-Area 51 guy delivered his rant, Art Bell left the booth for a Diet Coke.
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2106 9 4
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Every morning, the children dig holes for their parents. This is both necessary and beneficial: the kids need to dig and the parents have to be buried.
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2105 9 5
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Last night in the shower, I felt only vaguely aware that something in me had changed.
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2105 8 2
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It was Warren who introduced me to this bouncer fellow named John O’Toole. Warren met O’Toole and his wife, Angelina, through the dark prison poet Eugene Forcer. Forcer and O’Toole were the best of friends until a riff erupted between them one drunken n
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2105 47 22
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Only strong personalities can endure such size, the weak ones are extinguished by it.
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2104 7 3
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“You’ll have to do better than that,” Skip says.
My husband laughs. He has a high girlish chuckle when he’s truly delighted. He can sing really high like a girl, too.
“All right,” I say. I leave my headband
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2104 0 0
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For years I watched behind the glass
While merry parties purpled past
But now the world’s a Solemn Mass
And I can only think.
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2103 1 1
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This is the story of my friend, Gil
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2103 8 3
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2103 33 13
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There was dad sitting at the table, wide awake, reading glasses on nose, pen in hand above a Doppler graph of numbers on paper, one of many now-lost theorems, looking up as his son walked into the room.
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2103 6 3
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"Hattie? What are you doing?" Bosley asked, the quaver in his voice an indication of an impending erection.
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2102 22 16
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My mother used to say she'll be just like you and you‘ll deserve it. I was a Punk Rocker. A rebel. Emily worries about things like grades and sports. She's on the soccer team. I got stoned under the bleachers. Emily, is a good kid. …
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2102 7 2
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There were a lot of advantages to having shoelaces.
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2102 1 0
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That stupid bastard seemed to defy death at every turn in his life. His actions suggested invincibility, but his catch phrase indicated full awareness that he was indeed quite vincible.
And how fitting was his name. We didn’t know if it
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2102 23 14
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Henry yells at her when she lights cigarettes and candles. But this is her small secret ritual, her way of making good with the god she is no longer sure she believes in...
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