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Fast Talk

At fourteen, shoplifting is fun. Like a sport, it takes a lot of skill. I have to be quick and gutsy and able to fool people. I put on my good-girl face and wear my cargo pants because they have deep pockets.

Nothing To Lose

Early-onset Alzheimer’s, a nonmonogamous relationship, an upright piano

Sunbeams

Men are stupid and women are crazy. And the reason women are so crazy is because men are so stupid.

George Carlin

Lavender

As a child I thought of my mother and father in terms of centuries. This man and this woman had lived forever, it seemed, born wholly formed and unchanging, waiting patiently for my sisters and me to come along. Had someone told me my parents were, in truth, scarcely more than children themselves, I would have considered it a lie to rival the tooth fairy.

Breathe

For four consecutive Saturday mornings when we were in ninth grade, Brian Henderson and I went to a second-floor office above the pharmacy downtown to breathe. We woke at eight o’clock. We could not brush our teeth or eat.

Under The Apple Tree

When Joe left me sitting under the apple tree and started to walk across the meadow toward my trailer, he looked back and waved, and then walked on, and then he did a complete circle with his arms out, like he was embracing the world. That made me laugh, because he was so happy and willing to show it.

Temptation

A big, fat zip-lock bag of white powder; Crohn’s disease, a pair of turquoise earrings

Men Who Make Houses

I know the life story of every man who has so much as hammered in a nail at my house. This is not my doing. I’m disinclined to delve too deeply into the depths of anybody else’s dire experience. I’ve got my hands full with my own.