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64d0d59
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What you call your personality, you know?--it's not the actual bones, or teeth, something solid. It's more like a flame. A flame can be upright, and a flame can flicker in the wind, a flame can be extinguished so there's no sign of it, like it had never been.
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David Sedaris |
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88c25c8
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Here I am, just turned fifty, and I forgot that my father isn't dead yet!
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David Sedaris |
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491461d
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The next summer we went to France for six weeks, and I added another 420 words, most of them found in the popular gossip magazine, 'Voici'. "Man-eater", I'd say. "Gold digger, roustabout, louse". "Who are you talking about?" my neighbors would ask. "What social climber? Where?"
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David Sedaris |
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8d23d31
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Behind the naive vanities, the daydreams, they had very badly wanted to be writers. Had wanted it without knowing at all what it was they wanted, their fervor making up for their ignorance. His older self was cooler, more noncommittal, for he had learned that to publicize your goals means running the risk of falling short of them.
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David Sedaris |
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267eaa8
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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.
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David Sedaris |
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e2fed17
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Shit is the tofu of cursing and can be molded to whichever condition the speaker desires.
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David Sedaris |
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5c3c1b7
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The offices were like a national holding center for the trainably banal, occupied by people who decorated their cubicles with quilted, heart-shaped picture frames and those tiny plush bears with the fierce spring grip that cling to lamps and computer terminals, personalized to read "Terri's bear" or "I wuv you very beary much!"
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David Sedaris |
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b92c360
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We started when I was in the fourth grade, which would have made me ten, I guess. It's different for everyone, but at that age, though I couldn't have said that I was gay, I knew that I was not like the other boys in my class or my Scout troop. While they welcomed male company, I shrank from it, dreaded it, feeling like someone forever trying to pass, someone who would eventually be found out, and expelled from polite society. Is this how a..
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David Sedaris |
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2c49b08
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It was like watching someone you hate getting mugged: three seconds of hard-core violence, and when it was over you just wanted it to happen again.
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David Sedaris |
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c895c1d
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Moving heavy objects allowed me to feel manly in the eyes of other men. With the women it didn't matter, but I enjoyed subtly intimidating the guys with bad backs who thought they were helping out by telling us how to pack the truck. The thinking was that because we were furniture movers, we obviously weren't too bright. In addition to being strong and stupid, we were also thought of as dangerous. It might have been an old story to Patrick ..
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manly
manual-labor
movers
unintelligent
intimidating
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David Sedaris |
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d4586e5
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The better country club operated on the principle that Raleigh mattered, that its old families were fine ones, and that they needed a place where they could enjoy one another's company without being pawed at. Had we not found this laughable, our country club might have felt desperate.
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David Sedaris |
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4c75556
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It was, I thought, what evil must smell like.
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David Sedaris |
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65a7ce8
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Built around 1780... a two-hour train ride from Paris... the neighbor keeps his horses in my backyard... pies made with apples from my own trees..." I caught the highlights of Hugh's broadcast and understood that my first goal was to make him my boyfriend, to trick or blackmail him into making some sort of commitment. I know it sounds calculating, but if you're not cute, you might as well be clever."
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relationships
humor
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David Sedaris |
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a5e7bd5
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There were no computers in my high school, and the first two times I attempted college, people were still counting on their fingers and removing their shoes when the numbers got above ten.
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David Sedaris |
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590e1fb
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What they do at 6:00 a.m. is anyone's guess. I only know that they're incredibly self-righteous about it and talk about the dawn as if it's a personal reward, bestowed on account of their great virtue.
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David Sedaris |
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f221e8a
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I said that Santa no longer traffics in coal. Instead, if you're bad he comes to your house and steals things.
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David Sedaris |
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4d90f92
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North Carolina is temperate and populated with well-meaning people; therefore I will engage in oral sex with another man.
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David Sedaris |
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c4cac31
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In 2004, I offered priority (book)-signing to smokers, the reason being that, because they didn't have as long to live, their time was more valuable. Four years later my special treatment was reserved for men who stood five-foot-six and under. "That's right, my little friends," I announced. "There'll be no waiting in line for you." It seemed unfair to restrict myself to men, so I included any woman with braces on her teeth. "What about us?"..
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David Sedaris |
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8f71bad
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she was the human equivalent of a storm cloud.
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David Sedaris |
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77a0332
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Oh, for Christ's sake," I hear. "Can we please just try to have a good time?" 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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98518a0
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In his work shirt and underpants, he looked powerful but also cartoonish, like a bear dressed up for a job interview.
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David Sedaris |
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6a94b7d
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what fantasies are for: they allow you to skip the degradation and head straight to the top.
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David Sedaris |
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16a1ab3
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February 16, 1988 Reasons to live: 1. Christmas 2. The family beach trip 3. Writing a published book 4. Seeing my name in a magazine 5. Watching C. grow bald 6. Ronnie Ruedrich 7. Seeing Amy on TV 8. Other people's books 9. Outliving my enemies 10. Being interviewed by Terry Gross on "Fresh Air"
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David Sedaris |
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3129c29
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but that's what fantasies are for: they allow you to skip the degradation and head straight to the top.
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David Sedaris |
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f801c69
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Watch this. 'Buenos Dios, Miguel.'" A small, dark-eyed man looked up from his wood splitting, alarmed.
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David Sedaris |
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be7a43e
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She lit a cigarette and spent a moment identifying with the smoldering match.
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David Sedaris |
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cd22bb3
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February 13, 1989 Chicago Tonight at Barbara's Bookstore, Tobias Wolff read from his new memoir, This Boy's Life.
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David Sedaris |
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56b75a2
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Pointing to the oversized crate that served as a manger, one particularly insufficient wise man proclaimed, "A child is bored." Yes, well, so was this adult."
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David Sedaris |
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2ea036f
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I don't think of myself as overly prissy, but it bothered me to find a finger on my bedroom floor.
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David Sedaris |
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fdba522
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I wanted it, I wanted it, I wanted it, but the moment it was mine, it ceased to interest me.
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David Sedaris |
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92e194a
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admh bh an ndzhy khh mhrbn hstnd Hmq nystnd!
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David Sedaris |
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da43f96
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I'm not sure how long I lay there, blissed-out and farting.
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David Sedaris |
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46c0bc1
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if you're not cute, you might as well be clever.
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David Sedaris |
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5c1dc43
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Sex is what you boast about when you have no exterior signs of wealth. It's a way of saying, "Look, I might not own a fancy sport coat, or even a carry-on bag, but I do have two women and all the intercourse I can handle"
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sex
wealth
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David Sedaris |
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497ad93
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Get Your Ya-Ya's Out! It was for many years my family's habit to drive from North Carolina to western New York State to visit the relatives we had left behind. After spending ten days with my mother's family in Binghamton, we would drive the half hour to Cortland and spend an afternoon with my father's mother, the woman we addressed as Ya Ya. Ya Ya owned a newsstand/candy store, a long narrow room fitted with magazine racks and the high, wa..
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David Sedaris |
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67e8161
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It was the stupidest thing the cat had ever heard of, an AA program in prison.
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David Sedaris |
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35c93e5
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She regarded her grandchildren as if we were savings bonds, something certain to multiply in value through the majesty of arithmetic. Ya Ya and her husband had produced one child, who in turn had yielded five, a wealth of hearty field hands destined to return to the village, where we might crush olives or stucco windmills or whatever it was they did in her hometown. She was always pushing up our sleeves to examine our muscles, frowning at t..
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David Sedaris |
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0d068ba
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Whereas our other grandparents asked what grade we were in or which was our favorite ashtray, Ya Ya never expressed any interest in that sort of thing. Childhood was something you endured until you were old enough to work, and money was the only thing that mattered.
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David Sedaris |
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13fbf77
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We would pass the afternoon at Ya Ya's table, eating stringy boiled meat served with spinach pie. The food tasted as though it had been cooked weeks beforehand and left to age in a musty trunk. Her meals had been marinated in something dank and foreign and were cooked not in pots and pans, but in the same blackened kettles used by witches. Once we'd been served, she performed an epic version of grace. Delivered in both Greek and broken Engl..
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David Sedaris |
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91c07f4
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Lisa and I groaned, cursing our stupidity. Once again we'd been duped. There was nothing worse than spending an afternoon on a golf course. We knew what was in store for us and understood that the next few hours would pass like days or maybe even weeks. Our watches would yawn, the minute and hour hands joining each other in a series of periodic naps.
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David Sedaris |
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f87c7ae
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Seeing the pros in person was no more interesting than eating an ice-cold hamburger,
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David Sedaris |
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28dab35
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Every clue was italicized with a burst of surging trumpets, and under questioning, the suspects snapped like toothpicks, buckling in less time than it took to soft-boil an egg.
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David Sedaris |
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dfdb090
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That," the chief counselor said, "is what happens to people who play around." If this was the punishment for a boy and a girl, I felt certain the penalty for two boys somehow involved barbed wire, a team of donkeys, and the nearest volcano."
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David Sedaris |
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a352116
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Every gathering has its moment. As an adult, I distract myself by trying to identify it, dreading the inevitable down-swing that is sure to follow. The guests will repeat themselves one too many times, or you'll run out of dope or liquor and realize that it was all you ever had in common.
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David Sedaris |