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0d99580
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Well ... not exactly together. He'd buy a sofa and I'd buy a couple of matching chairs. One has to plan on divorce at all times ... still, it was a landmark of sorts. I'd never gotten to the furniture-buying stage before.
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Armistead Maupin |
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62be93a
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Thack seemed to sort something out for a moment. "Sometimes I watch him when he's playing with Harry or digging in the yard. And I think: This is it, this is the guy I've waited for all my life. Then this other voice tells me not to get used to it, that it'll only hurt more later. It's funny. You're feeling this enormous good fortune and waiting for it to be over at the same time." "You seem happy," Brian ventured. "I am." "Well ... that's..
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Armistead Maupin |
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ec25d49
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You don't have to keep up, dear. You just have to keep open.
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Armistead Maupin |
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684bd54
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Brian's face turned pouty. "So you were just blowing smoke up my ass." Anna smiled dimly. "You may have been inhaling, dear, but I wasn't blowing." --
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Armistead Maupin |
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4ae2576
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The menu at the Hug Deli included, among other items, the Warm and Fuzzy Hug, the Beverly Hills Air Kiss Hug, and the Gangsta Hug, with side orders of Pinch, Tickle, and Back Scratch. She ordered the Long Uncomfortable Hug, because she thought that was funny, thereby prompting a nut-brown Venice Beach-looking dude to hold on to her, earnestly pokerfaced, for a seeming eternity. "Are you uncomfortable yet?" "Fairly, yes." "Excellent. My wor..
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humour
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Armistead Maupin |
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b098b89
|
His name is Jed," he said. "He's in pre-law at Rice University. That's all I know, except that he's probably straight." The landlady gave him a sly smile. "That's what he told you? He's probably straight?" He laughed. "Well, he's currently in love with Bruce Springsteen, so I just assumed he was."
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Armistead Maupin |
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06604db
|
LIKE OTHER THINGS ABOUT HER, MARY ANN'S MENSTRUAL cycle was so regular that Mussolini might have included it on his train schedules.
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Armistead Maupin |
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d970857
|
How old are you?" I hadn't been asked this in a place of business since I was seventeen, when I tried, unsuccessfully, to buy a fifth of Jack Daniel's at a liquor store across the highway from Mr. Grady's gas station. It was just as unsettling to be carded at the other end of my life, for a fucking biscuit, no less, but I answered as civilly as possible. "I'm"
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Armistead Maupin |
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287b4c5
|
Who's Sally Bowles?" asked Ben. I turned and looked at my younger, less theatrical half. "She used to be married to Ansel Adams." "You're kidding?" "Yes, I am," I said. Jake"
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Armistead Maupin |
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05484c8
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Sooner or later, though, no matter where in the world we live, we must join the diaspora, venturing beyond our biological family to find our logical one, the one that actually makes sense for us. We have to, if we are to live without squandering our lives.
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Armistead Maupin |
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09683c7
|
Two days after his twelfth birthday, a fortnight before his father was jailed for debt, Charles Dickens was sent to work in a blacking factory. There, in a rat-infested room by the docks, he sat for twelve hours a day, labelling boot polish and learning the pain of abandonment. While he never spoke publicly of this ordeal, it would always be with him: in his social conscience and burning ambition, in the hordes of innocent children who lang..
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dickens
suffering
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Armistead Maupin |
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01fb0fc
|
Small world, huh?" She grinned lewdly. "Not particularly. I'd say you've just run out of material."
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get-laid
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Armistead Maupin |
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1e5a49b
|
A half-hour conversation with Binky was like eating a Whitman Sampler in one sitting.
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Armistead Maupin |
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f086ad3
|
I couldn't write--or wouldn't write, at any rate--unable to face the grueling self-scrutiny that fiction demands
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write
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Armistead Maupin |
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cd59e7d
|
It's time to get mad, Michael. Niceness doesn't count for shit!
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Armistead Maupin |
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974fd66
|
The worst of times in San Francisco was still better than the best of times anywhere else. There
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Armistead Maupin |
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4afdd75
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transcendental volleyball
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Armistead Maupin |
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8cb4cca
|
Look," said Mary Ann evenly, "if think you're really attractive, there must be plenty of men in town who feel the same way." "Yeah," said Michael ruefully. "Size queens." "Oh, don't be silly!" Sometimes Michael was sensitive about the dumbest things. He's at least five nine, thought Mary Ann. That's tall enough for anybody."
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Armistead Maupin |
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7df5c4c
|
The hostess extended her swanlike neck and opened her mouth to the fullest. "Aaaahhhaaaahhhhheeeeaaaahhhh!" Somewhere in the depths of the pine forest an identical sound reverberated. "An echo!" exclaimed Frannie. "No," smiled Helena. "Sybil Manigault. She's into nature."
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Armistead Maupin |
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d27affe
|
It makes more sense if you've lived it." A"
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Armistead Maupin |
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974e00c
|
C'mon, let's go join those tedious people.
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Armistead Maupin |
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adf3d09
|
That's all I know, except that he's probably straight." The landlady gave him a sly smile. "That's what he told you? He's probably straight?" He laughed. "Well, he's currently in love with Bruce Springsteen, so I just assumed he was." "Now wait a minute."
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Armistead Maupin |
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f0adeec
|
There, as usual, she found her husband asleep in the flickering light of MTV. She knelt by the sofa and laid her hand gently on his chest. "Hey," she whispered. "Who's it gonna be? Me or Pat Benatar?" He stirred, rubbing his eyes with the knuckles of his forefinger. "Well?" she prodded. "I'm thinking." --
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Armistead Maupin |
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772d9cf
|
You don't really know for certain about a family until somebody dies. You don't know anything until that happens." She"
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Armistead Maupin |
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938186b
|
Jesus Christ, you people are complicated.
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Armistead Maupin |
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feb43d3
|
The earth knows exactly how to hold us if we just let it.
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Armistead Maupin |
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f9de005
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He should have made a checklist for every step of this transformational journey to radical self-expression.
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Armistead Maupin |
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cf46961
|
The people beneath the pendulum were in their own orbits of bliss or grief, which Shawna did not want to invade. Instead she made her way upstairs, reading the inscriptions that caught her eye, moved by the sheer accumulation of loss. Grief-fiti. That's what it was.
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Armistead Maupin |
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b786ed3
|
Over the next eight years, almost without noticing, I arrived at a quiet revelation. You could make a home by yourself. You could fill that home with friends and friendly strangers without someone sleeping next to you. You could tend your garden and cook your meals and find predictable pleasure in your own autonomy.
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Armistead Maupin |
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e22724f
|
The line, Lasko. Do you know anyone in San Francisco? Are you just gonna get off the train and take a streetcar to the swimming pool?" "I might. I could." "You have to have a plan, Lasko." "No, I don't. Not after this. I don't have to have a plan in the world."
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Armistead Maupin |
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2cbac5c
|
Uh ... you know, strict." "With occasional lapses into lacto and ovo, huh?" "Yes. Except on weekends and nights when I'm stoned. Then I'm a steako-lacto-ovo ... or maybe a porkchopo-lacto-ovo..."
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Armistead Maupin |
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c54723d
|
Life goes on, sport.
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Armistead Maupin |
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750eba8
|
She was Anna Madrigal, a self-made woman, and there was no one else in the world exactly like her.
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Armistead Maupin |
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49091b7
|
Still, I gave her a call, wondering if she might have lost someone herself, but our talk was limited to the surreal events we'd just watched on television. A crisis does draw people together, but rarely for the right reason. The old wounds flare up again soon enough; the bond lasts no longer than the terror.
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Armistead Maupin |
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c0227cd
|
And this was what bothered him about owning a VCR. If that cowboy was yours for the taking--yours at the flip of a switch--what was to stop you from abandoning human contact altogether? He
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Armistead Maupin |
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a0324ff
|
Then they would both dissolve in giggles, bowing in their mirth to the awful hopelessness of it all.
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mirth
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Armistead Maupin |
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9dd15e0
|
C'etait le grand point fort de l'amour : quelqu'un qui vous attend et vous declare que le chemin sera moins penible, a partir de maintenant. Meme si ce n'est peut-etre pas vrai.
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Armistead Maupin |
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8608258
|
In a burst of hideous insight, DeDe realized the depth of her commitment to this marriage. She had just traded adultery for a cheeseburger and an order of french fries.
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Armistead Maupin |
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66a31f1
|
Help me find Vuitton." The priest scolded her with a glance. "You've lost him again?" "Of course not," said Prue. "He's around here somewhere. Vuiiiton! Here, boy!Vuiiiiiton! ..."
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Armistead Maupin |
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3b69757
|
The little pool was lighted now, the same glowing green-or so I imagined-as the eyes of the cats who slept in the shadows around it.
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Armistead Maupin |
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39fa7fe
|
We have rules. Full disclosure, for one thing. And we're in bed with each other at the end of the day. Our commitment is for life, and we save our hearts for each other. That way we can have play AND permanency. If monogamy becomes more important than fidelity, you're bound to get hurt. It's all the lying that clobbers you, not the sex.
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gay-lovers
monogamy
sex
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Armistead Maupin |
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9388729
|
Your hair has always been amazing. I remember those fabulous chopsticks you used to wear." Anna wore a look of amused chagrin. "I'm afraid Mr. Greenleaf won't let me wear those anymore. I took a little tumble one night and almost harpooned the cat." This was very much the Anna she remembered: warm and self-mocking and complete present. And somehow that made it even harder to accept how frail she'd become since Mary Ann's last visit."
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getting-old
hairstyle
lgbtqia-characters
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Armistead Maupin |
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4b303ca
|
I have always preferred an occasional orgy to a nightly routine." "What?" "Aunt Augusta said that. In Travels with My Aunt."
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lgbtqia-characters
orgy
|
Armistead Maupin |
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4a80836
|
The rules of a well-ordered life were never enough when other people refused to obey them.
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Armistead Maupin |