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3e59cb7
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Neither of them had ever picked up a pen in their life, but all of a sudden they're poets, right, like that's all it takes--being in love.
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David Sedaris |
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3935d1b
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You're not supposed to talk about your good deeds, I know. It effectively negates them and in the process makes people hate you. If there's a disaster, for instance, and someone tells me he donated five thousand dollars to the relief effort--this while I gave a lesser amount, or nothing at all--I don't think, Goodness, how bighearted you are, but, rather, Fuck you for making me look selfish.
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David Sedaris |
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fea6cfb
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We're forever blaming the airline industry for turning us into monsters: it's the fault of the ticket agents, the baggage handlers, the slowpokes at the newsstands and the fast food restaurants. But what if this is who we truly are, and the airport's just a forum that allows us to be our real selves, not just hateful but gloriously so?
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David Sedaris |
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2de6e6b
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The position was offered at the last minute, when the scheduled professor found a better-paying job delivering pizza.
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David Sedaris |
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e1bb40f
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Boston's "That is good" is Berlin's "Das ist gut." It's an excellent way to start and leaves the listener thinking, 'Hey, Ich kann do dis.' :D"
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David Sedaris |
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9b55b24
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Walking home with the back half of the twelve-foot ladder I turned to look in the direction of Hugh's loft. 'You will be mine,' I commanded.
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David Sedaris |
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a1a5b45
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This is like ordering someone to find you attractive, and it doesn't work. I've tried it.
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David Sedaris |
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357758d
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One of the things we laughed about was an old episode of The Newlywed Game. The host asked the wives, "What's the most exotic place you've ever made love?" He was likely expecting "The kitchen" or "On a tennis court at night," but one woman didn't quite understand the question and answered, "In the butt."
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David Sedaris |
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67d4441
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WHEN ASKED " What do we need to learn this for?" any high-school teacher can confidently answer that, regardless of the subject, the knowledge will come in handy once the student hits middle age and starts working crossword puzzles in order to stave off the terrible loneliness. Because it's true. Latin, geography, the gods of ancient Greece and Rome: unless you know these things, you'll be limited to doing the puzzles in People magazine, wh..
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David Sedaris |
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9b7e204
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I wonder whose job it was to assign these sexes in the first place. Did he do his work right there in the sanitarium, or did they rent him a little office where he could get away from all the noise?
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David Sedaris |
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30de69f
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At noon a huge crowd of retarded people came to visit Santa and passed me on my little island. These people were profoundly retarded. They were rolling their eyes and wagging their tongues and staggering toward Santa. It was a large group of retarded people and after watching them for a few minutes I could not begin to guess where the retarded people ended and the regular New Yorkers began. Everyone looks retarded once you set your mind to ..
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new-yorkers
new-york-city
dark-humor
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David Sedaris |
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42077b6
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It seems crazy to cut smoking mothers out of textbooks, but within a few years they won't be allowed in movies either. A woman can throw her newborn child from the roof of a high-rise building. She can then retrieve the body and stomp on it while shooting into the windows of a day-care center, but to celebrate these murders by lighting a cigarette is to send a harmful message. There are, after all, young people watching, and we wouldn't wan..
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David Sedaris |
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99d1582
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Things began to come together, and I went from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. "Is thems the thoughts of cows?" I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window."
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David Sedaris |
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694c95c
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In my experience, it was hard to write without your preferred tools, but impossible to write without a cigarette.
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David Sedaris |
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96dccfc
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You're the man now," she said to me after my father died, "you're the man." Then she turned to Popeye, our calico tom, and said, "You're the cat now, Popeye, you're the cat,"
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David Sedaris |
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a749459
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That's the problem with wishes, they ensnare you. In fairy tales they're nothing but trouble, magnifying the greed and vanity of the person for whom they are granted.
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David Sedaris |
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5a77943
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if you think too hard about anything it's bound to take the fun out of it.
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David Sedaris |
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a1c806e
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I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.
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David Sedaris |
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5a74290
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For to witness majesty, to find yourself literally touched by it - isn't that what we've all been waiting for?
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David Sedaris |
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c610bfb
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There was my life before I told a strange woman in a negligee that I was a homosexual, and now there would be my life after, two chapters so dissimilar in style and content that they might have been written by different people.
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David Sedaris |
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e120953
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I'm dating myself, but this was before Jesus Christ. We worshiped a God named Sashatiba, who had five eyes, including one on the Adam's apple.
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religion
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David Sedaris |
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6a79313
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Our neighbors would rise early and visit the malls, snatching up gift-wrapped Dustbusters and the pom-pommed socks used to protect the heads of golf clubs. Christmas would arrive and we, the people of this country, would gather around identical trees, voicing our pleasure with worn cliches. Turkeys would roast to a hard, shellacked finish. Hams would be crosshatched with x's and glazed with fruit -- and it was fine by me. Were I to receive ..
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David Sedaris |
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6042ac5
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Most of my ribbons were for good sportsmanship, a backhanded compliment if ever there was one.
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David Sedaris |
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4553d3a
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The part of my plan that made old people uncomfortable, that exposed them for the bigots they were--and on a Sunday!--still appealed to me.
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David Sedaris |
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0e44ed6
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Love seemed all the sweeter when it was misunderstood, condemned by the outside world.
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David Sedaris |
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fb4e4a2
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The people I hung out with in my early twenties were middle-class and, at least to our minds, artistic. We'd all turned our backs on privilege, but comfortably, the way you can when you still have access to it. No one wanted to call home asking for money, but we all knew that in a pinch our parents would come through for us.
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David Sedaris |
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2fcb611
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The thing about Hawaii, at least the part that is geared toward tourists, is that it's exactly what it promises to be. Step off the plane, and someone places a lei around your neck, as if it were something you had earned--an Olympic medal for sitting on your ass. Raise a hand above your shoulder and, no matter where you are, a drink will appear: something served in a hollowed-out pineapple, or perhaps in a coconut that's been sawed in half...
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David Sedaris |
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36c33d4
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Perhaps I've grown less likable over the years, or maybe I've just forgotten how to meet people. The initial introduction -- the shaking-hands part -- I can still manage. It's the follow-up that throws me. Who calls whom, and how often? What if you decide after the second or third meeting that you don't really like this person? Up to what point are you allowed to back out? I used to know these things, but now they're a mystery.
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David Sedaris |
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65b7257
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Gambling to me is what a telephone pole might be to a groundhog. He sees that it's there but doesn't for the life of him understand why.
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David Sedaris |
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551edd8
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While the builders worked on the cottage, Hugh lived in what used to be the stable but was later converted into a guesthouse, the kind you'd have if you wanted to either discourage guests or contain them in one spot while slowly depressing them to death.
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David Sedaris |
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554b775
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Poor, chubby Annette Kelper, who desperately tries to pretend that nobody notices the fact that she's balding on top of her head. That's right. Look closely -- balding just like a man. Perhaps Randy feels sorry for chrome-dome Annette.
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David Sedaris |
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16a8fab
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Here I've given him a good eight inches and a shot at immortality and he'll turn on me the same way he did last year when I asked him to pose for a few nude sketches. Ingrate
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David Sedaris |
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66f5a3a
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Well, think about it," he said. "Exposing yourself to a girl is one thing. Doing it to a boy, though--the guy would have to be perverted."
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David Sedaris |
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fa76b82
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Isn't that sweet of my only son to travel all this way so he can whine about his pathetic little friend? Maybe if I weren't strapped to my deathbed I could muster up the strength to give a damn.
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David Sedaris |
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f404436
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And it's bad enough to be caught in your underpants but even worse to be caught in your underpants scratching out a valium prescription on someone else's pad.
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David Sedaris |
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898c5b2
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Never again would I have so many friends, and such good ones, though I'm not exactly sure why. Perhaps I've grown less likable over the years, or maybe I've just forgotten how to meet people. The initial introduction -- the shaking-hands part -- I can still manage. It's the follow-up that throws me. Who calls whom, and how often? What if you decide after the second or third meeting that you don't really like this person? Up to what point ar..
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David Sedaris |
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24b51c6
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Exceptions were made for Friday episodes of One Life to Live, and, occasionally, for Oprah, who was one of the few black people Helen had any regard for. Perhaps in the past she had been more open-minded, but getting mugged in the foyer of our building convinced her that they were all crooks and sex maniacs. "Even the light-skinned ones."
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David Sedaris |
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55378bb
|
The third guest, a poet, had recently published a memoir about her cancer and the many operations performed in an effort to reconstruct her jaw.
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David Sedaris |
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2e876c6
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This town is the Greek Baltimore.
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David Sedaris |
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7bb0733
|
Every day we're told that we live in the greatest country on earth. And it's always stated as an undeniable fact: Leos are born between July 23 and August 22, fitted queen-size sheets measure sixty by eighty inches, and America is the greatest country on earth. Having grown up with this in our ears, it's startling to realize that other countries have nationalistic slogans of their own, none of which are "We're number two!"
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David Sedaris |
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58e0919
|
It really is torture to sit around the house and write all day. I'm thinking it might motivate me to finish the book faster, the thought that after it's finished I can return to housecleaning. The
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David Sedaris |
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302c77a
|
It made no sense naturewise--owls and songbirds work different shifts, and even if they didn't they would still never be friends.
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David Sedaris |
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ac3314e
|
Mijn vader houdt van jazz en heeft een uitgebreide verzameling platen en banden waarvan hij vroeger als hij uit zijn werk kwam kon genieten. Hij kon met een rothumeur binnenkomen, maar als hij Dexter Gordon had opgezet en zichzelf een wodkacocktail had ingeschonken, ebde zijn stress snel weg en werd alles 'te gek, jongen, gewoon te gek.' Op het moment dat de naald op de plaat neerdaalde, maakt hij zijn das los en werd hij iemand anders dan ..
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platen
jazz
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David Sedaris |
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a9776d3
|
My sister has appendages connected to her ankles. They feature toes and arches, but I cannot call them feet. In color they resemble the leathery paws of great apes, but in texture they are closer to hooves. In order to maintain her balance, she'll periodically clear the bottoms of debris--a bottle cap, bits of broken glass, a chicken bone--but within moments she'll have stepped on something else and begun the process all over again. It's wh..
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David Sedaris |