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c6438be
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The whole notion of the nursing home was something dreamed up by people like my mother; American women with sunglasses, always searching for their tanning lotion or cigarette lighters.
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David Sedaris |
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ac1602a
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If you see devils, they lock you up, but in America, if you see angels, they put you on morning TV.
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David Sedaris |
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667a66b
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Live with liberty, and your imagination can soar.
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David Sedaris |
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36903d4
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We were standing near the Lollipop Forest when we realized that Santa is an anagram of Satan... Overhearing the customers we would substitute the Satan for the world Santa.
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David Sedaris |
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adb203b
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We'd all turn 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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81fbcf9
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I explained that he was Chinese, and she asked if the movie would be in Chinese. "No," I said, "he lives in America. In California. He's been there since he was a baby." "Then what does it matter if he's Chinese?" "Well," I said, "he's got... you know, a sensibility."
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David Sedaris |
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d4899f0
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Then the flight attendants, garbage bags in hand, glided down the aisle, looking each one of us square in the face and whispering, without discrimination, "Your trash. You're trash. Your family's trash."
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David Sedaris |
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c9c429e
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Half the people I know have dead animals in their freezers: reptiles, birds, mammals. Is that normal?
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David Sedaris |
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69011c2
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It's not lost on me that I'm so busy recording life, I don't have time to really live it.
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photography
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David Sedaris |
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c1248b9
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You want to be French, Mary Frances, that's your problem, but instead you're just another American." I went to the window for that one an saw a marriage disintegrate before my eyes. Poor Mary Frances in her beige beret... "Americans," he repeated. "We don't live in in France, we live in Virginia. Vienna, Virginia. Got it?" I looked at this guy and knew for certain that if we'd met at a party he'd claim to live in Washington, D.C. Ask for a..
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David Sedaris |
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911c8dd
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The houses looked like something a child might draw, a row of shaky squares with triangles on top. Add a door, add two windows. Think of putting a tree in the front yard, and then decide against it because branches aren't worth the trouble.
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creativity
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David Sedaris |
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2504e5f
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I don't know why it was, exactly, but nothing irritated my father quite like the sound of his children's happiness. Group crying, he could stand, but group laughing was asking for it, especially at the dinner table.
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laughter
crying
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David Sedaris |
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59099d7
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I'd think it strange that the boardinghouse attracted both him and me, but that's what cheap places do -- draw in people with no money. An apartment of my own was unthinkable at that time of my life, and even if I'd found an affordable one it wouldn't have satisfied my fundamental need to live in a communal past, or what I imagined the past to be like: a world full of antiques.
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money
living
community
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David Sedaris |
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c59196a
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I can't remember the last time I've enjoyed silence in an American theater. It's easy to believe that our audiences spend the day saying nothing, actually saving their voices for the moment the picture begins.
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David Sedaris |
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46ae947
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I look into the future and see my brother's face, impossibly middle-aged. His daughter has rejected all of his values, and stands now on the dais of a major university, the valedictorian preparing to deliver her commencement speech. What will she think when her dad stands in the aisle, releasing a hog call and raising his T-shirt to reveal the jiggling message painted upon his bare stomach? Will she turn away, as my father predicts, or migh..
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David Sedaris |
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6e0b285
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Finally he was hit by a train while walking, which is strange because trains don't generally sneak up on people. For the most part, barring a derailment, you know exactly where to find them.
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David Sedaris |
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bd89827
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Making it worse, I had to sit through another endless preview for Titanic. Who do they think is going to see that movie?
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David Sedaris |
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0f13976
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I later learn that what I suffered was called blunt force trauma. It's remarkably similar to how I felt after the election, as if I'd been slammed into a wall or hit by a car. Both pains persist-show no signs, in fact, of ever going away. The damage is permanent. I will never be the same as I was before the accident/election.
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resist
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David Sedaris |
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2da4288
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Another word I've added to "the list" is "conversation," as in "We need to have a national conversation about_________." This is employed by the left to mean "You need to listen to me use the word 'diversity' for an hour." The right employs obnoxious terms as well--"libtard," "snowflake," etc.--but because they can be applied to me personally it seems babyish to ban them. I've outlawed "meds," "bestie," "bucket list," "dysfunctional," "expa..
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David Sedaris |
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9867b3e
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Honestly, though, does choice even come into it? Is it my fault that the good times fade to nothing while the bad ones burn forever bright? Memory aside, the negative just makes for a better story: the plane was delayed, an infection set in, outlaws arrived and reduced the schoolhouse to ashes. Happiness is harder to put into words. It's also harder to source, much more mysterious than anger or sorrow, which come to me promptly, whenever I ..
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David Sedaris |
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323ecc7
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The Bible says that it's all right to cast the first stone if someone dead is telling you to do it
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David Sedaris |
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0928ec1
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I like the kind of man John is. He watches things closely and then does nothing with the information.
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David Sedaris |
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b24a778
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Low ceiling, stone walls, a dirt floor stamped with paw prints. I never go in without announcing myself. 'Hyaa!' I yell. 'Hyaa. Hyaa!' It's the sound my father makes when entering his toolshed, the cry of cowboys as they round up dogies, and it suggests a certain degree of authority. Snakes, bats, weasels --it's time to head up and move on out.
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humor
scared
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David Sedaris |
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6d587d6
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At what point had I realized that class couldn't save you, that addiction or mental illness didn't care whether you'd taken piano lessons or spent a summer in Europe?
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David Sedaris |
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a1b6418
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I can't seem to fathom that the things important to me are not important to other people as well, and so I come off sounding like a missionary, someone whose job is to convert rather than listen. ... It's not that I don't like her - far from it - I just worry that, without a regular job and the proper linoleum, she'll fall through a crack and disappear to a place where we can't find her.
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David Sedaris |
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088be65
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March 30, 1998 Because I was in a bind with my BBC story, I devoted most of my day to defrosting the freezer.
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David Sedaris |
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b90ca53
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Wants to set the world on fire, and if it can't happen by tomorrow morning at nine a.m., then life's just unfair and hardly worth living.
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David Sedaris |
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e8d2b18
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That man tried to picka my frienda's pocketoni!
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robbery
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David Sedaris |
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8820384
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To spend your days in the company of naked men - that was the life for me.
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David Sedaris |
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d6b036f
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I know it sounds calculating, but if you're not cute, you might as well be clever.
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David Sedaris |
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07a4df5
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He didn't understand that it's all connected, that one subject leads to another and forms a kind of chain that rises its head and nods like cobra when you're sucking on a bong after three days of no sleep. On acid, it's even wilder and appears to eat things. But not having gone to college, my dad had no concept of a well-rounded liberal arts education.
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David Sedaris |
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4db350d
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When I was seven years old, my family moved to North Carolina. When he was seven years old, Hugh's family moved to the Congo. We had a collie and a house cat. They had a monkey and two horses named Charlie Brown and Satan. I threw stones at stop signs. Hugh threw stones at crocodiles. The verbs are the same, but he definitely wins the prize when it comes to nouns and objects.
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David Sedaris |
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d850573
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You're not going to throw this away, are you?" she says, and she'll be talking about the grains of rice in the bottom of the salt shaker. "No, Mrs. Peacock, by all means, you take them. They'll come in handy when your son gets out of prison and marries your niece."
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David Sedaris |
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59bf645
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On the off chance my caller would tell me to quit drinking, I positioned myself on the sofa with two six-packs and a bottle of nice scotch. Then I turned on the TV and ate a sandwich made from leftover chicken lo mein. I call it a Chanwich.
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David Sedaris |
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1ef517b
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You just take and take don't you? Out there with your thumb in the air--not a care in the world, just grabbing whatever you can get. Yes, sir, you just take and take until you're ready to burst. But what about giving? Did you ever think about that? Of course not--you're too busy taking, Mr. Handout, Mr. Gimmee, Gimmee, Gimmee.
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David Sedaris |
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3190973
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One year I went as a pirate, but from then on I went as a hobo. It's a word you don't hear anymore. Along with 'tramp,' it's been replaced by 'homeless person,' which isn't the same thing. Unlike someone who was evicted or lost his house in a fire, the hobo roughed it by choice. Being at liberty, unencumbered by bills and mortgages, better suited his drinking schedule, and so he found shelter wherever he could, never a bum, but something mu..
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David Sedaris |
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a037467
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Like everything else, holiday gifts escalate. The presents get better and better until one year you decide you don't need anything else and start making donations to animal shelters. Even if you hate dogs and cats, they're somehow always the ones who benefit.
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David Sedaris |
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6d76cbe
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I hate computers. My hatred is entrenched, and I nourish it daily. I'm comfortable with it, and no community outreach program will change my mind. I hate computers for getting their own section in the New York Times and for lengthening commercials with the mention of a Web site address. Who really wants to find out more about Procter & Gamble? Just buy the toothpaste or laundry detergent, and get on with it. I hate them for creating the wor..
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hate
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David Sedaris |
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f431aaf
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I realized I was a teacher when I felt warm during class and got up to open the door. Later on there was noise in the hallway, so I got up and shut it. Students can't open and close the door whenever they feel like it.
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college
teaching
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David Sedaris |
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4dc25e3
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I was hoping the people of the world might be united by something more interesting, like drugs or an unarmed struggle against the undead.
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David Sedaris |
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86f6477
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Today the teacher called me a sadist. I tried to say that was like the pot calling the kettle black but came out with something closer to "That is like a pan saying to a dark pan, 'You are a pan."
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David Sedaris |
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3fa9bde
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Upon returning from the store, he would put the meat into the freezer, hide his favorite fruits in the bathroom cabinet, and stuff everything else into the crisper. It was, of course, too late for crisp, but he took the refrigerator drawer at its word, insisting that it was capable of reviving the dead and returning them, hale and vibrant, to the prime of their lives. Subjected to a few days in his beloved crisper, a carrot would become as ..
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David Sedaris |
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e902a99
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The hippo did, and I heard what sounded at first like a rabble, many voices talking over one another. Then I realized that they weren't talking. "Let me get this straight," the hippo said when I explained what was going on. "Leeches are singing inside my asshole."
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David Sedaris |
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2d1dcfc
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Then there are vegans, macrobiotics, and a new group, flexitarians, who eat meat if not too many people are watching.
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David Sedaris |