Let's Not Do That Again

He considered the possibility that perhaps living was about having as many lives as possible, and this was how his next one was meant to begin.

She wondered if this was the moment when she’d actually grow old—not her marriage, or two pregnancies, or passing the bar, but this: the realization that the worst could, and would, happen to her, that tragedy wasn’t only meant for someone else.

The class was not fun, as Nick had promisjed....Once, Robbie B yelled at me over this microphone, by name, to "whip" harder, so I did. I whipped so fucking hard that as he was walking by, the rope sprang up and hit him in the face....His nose was red and blood was poring down hto his shirt. He started clapping.... "You don't need help? You don't want me to stop?" "Don't stop! Never stop!

The class was divided in to three stations, and Robbie B explained eash of them to me with a g-less version of its corresponding gerund; trampin', liftin', whippin'....In liftin' I'd be doing things with weights: curling them. pressing them over my head -- the sort of shit that I'm sure people consider manual labor elsewhere, but that in New York you pay fifty-two dollars to do.

I'm sorry," I said. "I guess I don't know my own strength." "What are you talking about -- that was awesome!" the bridge of his nose was all puffy and swollen and his left eye was starting to bruise. "In fact, I'm going to tell the front desk to give you a free class.

I briefly considered throwing my salad in my brother's face -- just letting him have it, spinach and all -- but then figured that would be rude, considering I wasn't the one who had paid for it, and so I opted instead simply not to respond.

I had a shift after lunch, and when I got to the store, Neil was waiting for me by a display of iPhone cases. He had this crazed look in his eyes, like if he didn't get to talk to me his nostrils would consume his entire face, so I ignored him and walked to the opposite end of the store...

I'm broke and I need to fly to Paris." "And why do you need to go to Paris?" "Because there's a man there who loves me and who can help me ruin my mother's life." Dipping her spoon into her bowl, my grandmother nodded, sipped some soup, and -- I think -- smiled. "My purse is in the ktchen," she said, "go write yourself a check.

In appearance, they are nearly identical....They could also lead him anywhere. To more forked roads; to dead ends; to Greta. If New York is a grid, Paris is a handful of spaghetti, dropped on the floor by a toddler.

He reminded himself that he was dealing with Americans, and that if Americans are good at one thing it is uninvited and pointless intervention, even if it comes at the expense of a prolonged war in the Middle East, or -- worse -- a low-moving Starbucks lline.

Oh, come on. I'm kidding. Your situation is very different from mine. I mean, Jane was a poet. No one, under any circumstances, should ever live with a poet.

It is only Tuesday; the crossword is less of a puzzle and more of an ego hand job.

He spoke often enough, and loudly enough, to convince people he was getting things done.

It's got to be disappointing, being called all those things." Nancy thinks: How long has she been doing this? Nearly twenty years--she can pin it to the month. The answer to that question can never untie itself from her husband's death: when Howard was killed, Nancy ran. Since then she has been called, among other things, a bitch, a cunt, a slut. Hysterical, emotional, irrational. Too fat, too thin, too tall, too short. Murderer of a husband, mother of a faggot, destroyer of liberty. A harpy, a ballbuster, a snowflake, a traitor. But also: a fighter. A role model. Sunglasses on, coat collar popped, walking down the Capitol steps. A hope, and probably just as often, a threat. The reason that the Republic might ultimately prevail, but also the source of its ultimate demise. She says: "America is disappointing, Cate. That's why we do what we do.

What the fuck am I supposed to do with this thing?" "You're supposed to eat it," Cate says. "With what? A forklift?

Inevitably there would be a complaint about dark faces, moving around neighborhoods where they didn't belong, and then another about gay teachers, making queers of their students. A world turned on its head! Tradition being destroyed! A way of life at stake! It didn't matter if it was about headscarves in the Marais, or a fight about bathrooms in North Carolina--the complaint was always the same. Toxic nostalgia porn, is how Nancy likes to describe it. Men who get off by sticking their heads in the sand. Who swear the future is destroying their country, as they pick bones from their teeth.

Clean slates, new beginnings—there’s none of that, not in real life, anyway. There’s making sense of yesterday so you can do it better tomorrow.

It was another way to control the shape of a memory, I figured, instead of letting it have a life of its own.