It is the only place to party. The walls gleam with new paint but the smell inside the room is cigarette smoke and boozy breaths–lots of people talking. The madness of it: I love it.

Eat Eve first. Begin with her because you are frightened of her. Eat her before she eats you. There’s hunger in her eyes.

Bought and paid. One sounds meaner than the other. Or they seem to be at odds: Bought thinks its better than Paid. Paid thinks bought is a pain. Paid wants a capital “P.” Same for “B.”
When will it end? Until one of them dies?

The clouds parted and the sun lay on me for about four minutes before clouds rolled in again. But the smell of flowers rolled in like waves, their fragrance lathing me anytime I was down of a bouquet, borne of lawn or tree. It is spring, dammit, and I was outside and I loved it.
And your son loved it too.

Did you know that I sold my plasma every week, when I was in college? No. You don’t. That’s how much you don’t give a fuck about me.

When you have a pretend conversation with someone, you have to do all of the talking.

There is nothing sad about looking at a blue pillow, or my gray sweatpants or my bare feet. I am just resting, waiting to feel rested actually, and there is no harm–in fact, there is something downright patriotic about scratching my exposed belly as I proclaim to myself on my more-than-halfway journey to feeling well-rested.

-You were drunk.

-I had only green tea.

-You can get drunk on green tea.

He cannot be made to sit in that cushion because he says his back is a bit “dippy” and for decades no one has ever asked what he’s meant by “dippy” because we’ve pretty much have known what he’s meant. Twitchy, achy. Impinging in on him in some way.
But we notice he does sit on other cushions. There are the ones on the window seat that he is perfectly fine with. Although we are not, because he tends to twist his whole torso and throws one leg up over the remainder of the window seat. And he twists his neck toward the back yard, to get a view of the roses.
This stresses the rest of us out. For we are sure this will only make his ‘dippy’ back Dippier.

Fresh vegetables are annoying. First of all, it’s annoying that you assume they are fresh, just because of how shiny and perfect they look. Too perfect, if you ask me.

More annoying than anything is that you have to cut them up, only to realize the knife is dull and sharpening a dull knife is even duller than sharpening vegetables. So: veggies are washed and in the sink–you leave the sink and end up at your bureau top, because it’s easier to clear things–physically at least. And while you are putting things away, you open up a bureau drawer and find a pair of cutoff jeans. Size 27. You haven’t been a size 27 since college. Cutoffs? Pshaw! Oh, but well, you reconsider, I did have fun in these jeans, in college, even before they were cut from the thigh. I even had fun cutting them with scissors which, come to think of it, were dull–so dull, in fact, my knuckles bled. I examine the cutoffs closer…for the dried, twenty year old blood.

But there isn’t any, a la Brokeback Mountain.

But how did the cutoffs end up on the surface of the drawer? And then I remember: I was sorting this very bureau top earlier, yesterday in fact, during which I’d gotten rid of some old clothes. These cutoff jeans are by the far the oldest. But they’re still here, with new life. For the jeans at least. But me? I am infused with a very distinct lackadaisical quality where I am now compelled to sit on the couch and hunt for socks, which somehow end up under my sofa all the time.