"She looks really good in the morning before she puts in her teeth," he said in a slow voice that left little doubt as to his sincerity. "From there on though she's pretty much anyone's nightmare." 
 
I suspect that the fictions fluttering in my mind would pale before the realities of Junior and his bride. In this small notion beams a glimmer of hope.

"Which guard is working the case?" I asked. "I hope it's the fat guy with the fiendishly small head." 
 
"Sorry," he replied. "It's the other guy - the good kisser with the fake-knee swagger that you find so fetching." 
 
It's clear now that I must seek out a better class of friend. This one knows me far too well.

She said that she enjoyed my musings and who wouldn't want to hear that after all? 
 
She asked if, per chance, I might be a current or former academic. 
 
"Yes," I thought. "But I prefer to think of myself as a 'Recovering Academic.'" 
 
Everything is more satisfying when tinged with the whisper of hopelessness. 

"What's his problem?" 
 
I asked because I really wanted to know - kind of. 
 
"What his problem?" she repeated back to me in a tone that was considerably more confrontational than my initial query. 
 
"Yeah," I clucked innocently. 
 
"You just called his film a 'bubbling, festering, turd-filled pot pie' and likened the writing to that of a stenographer who was choking on a Mentos and who couldn't quite recall how to spell out 'S.O.S.' in longhand. I wonder if that might not be his problem!" 
 
Again with the confrontational tone that I find so off-putting. 
 
"Well surely he didn't think it was good," I argued. "I mean - he just sat through the same screening that we did, right?" 
 
In the end I suppose I went too far with the Mentos.

"Sir? Would you like to help combat domestic abuse?" he asked from behind his folding table. 
 
"Sure," I answered as I walked by. "Let me drop this stuff off in my car and then we can go kick some ass. Be right back."

"I need you to keep me honest," she said. 
 
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" I asked. 
 
"I'm not sure I understand..." she added. 
 
"Damn," I concluded, "I guess you were right."

My father, an old cleric from way back, used to say that he preferred performing funerals to weddings. 
 
He was fairly certain that the folks in the coffins were set on staying dead.

He don't use no turn signals. Ain't never seen the point. 
 
Ain't like nobody outside the car can hear them anyway.

"You're really not as funny as you think you are," she scolded. "Not even almost." 
 
"How do you know?" I asked her. 
 
I reckon she'll just have to get back to me later on that one.

"The most interesting people you know are either dead or should be," he said in a matter-of-fact way that struck me as more contrived than coy. "Which one are you?"  
 
"That depends," I replied. "Are we both the same people we were two minutes ago? If so then yes." 
 
"That's not an answer," he protested. 
 
"Sure it is," I assured him. "You simply asked the wrong question."

The sign on their door indicated that braille menus were available on request. 
 
I thought to myself that I was glad to have seen that.

She told me that the things that didn't kill me made me stronger. 
 
I asked her which she was trying to accomplish that day. 
 
She seemed to think that I was strong enough already.

I wondered for how long he was set to stay mad at that cat. 
 
"For as long as it takes," he said, almost at a whisper, his voice trembling. 
 
I wondered what sort of betrayal could have put up such a wall between man and feline. 
 
"Oh, she knows what she's done," he said, "she knows..." 
 
I wondered why I ever bothered talking to him in the first place. 
 
"Because you haven't deciphered me yet," he said. "And you're only at peace among things you don't understand." 
 
I wondered if he might have been on to something.

She asked if I planned to be like this all weekend. 
 
It was only then that I realized that I'd been like something at all.

i have my own burp language. 
it's melodious and with clicks. 
i should teach it to someone 
so we could giggle on the subway 
about the things we just burped. 
 
people would catch on 
and some would burp too or raise an eyebrow 
but this is vexing - a system. 
you don't just figure out things like this 
without someone first teaching it to you. 
 
simply wanting a burp language is not enough.

This was my own doing I suppose. I'd held the door open for the cheerful-looking stranger and had exacerbated the situation by acting as her lift-button proxy. 
 
"And how are you on this glorious morning my good sir?" she asked. 
 
I told her that I'd do just fine. 
 
"It's so hard to come to work on a day like this," she continued. 
 
"What sort of day would that be?" I asked in all sincerity. 
 
"Why, a beautiful day. That's what sort of day it is!" she added, her smile beaming. 
 
I hadn't noticed. 
 
"I hadn't noticed," I told her, "but I'm sure I will before the day is through." 
 
"Do," she chirped.

I once had my daughter roll down the passenger window of my car such that I might better heckle a protester for a glaring grammatical error on his placard.  
 
"YOUR EVIL, MR. BUSH!" it read.  
 
"Hey dipshit!" I yelled. "Apostrophe?" 
 
To my knowledge this remains my daughter's favorite story involving me, automobiles, and random activists.

She said: "You need to grow out of something. I just don't know what it is yet." 
 
She knows now just how much interest I have in her perspective. 
 
I cleared that up. 

I occasionally answer incoming calls by asking for myself just as a way to test the resolve of the caller. 
 
None tested have passed.

I don't really hear voices in my head as I've led you to believe.  
 
Not because they're not there but rather because I just don't hear them when they are. 
 
I often wonder if they're simply waiting for me to fall asleep to start their talking.  
 
They certainly have a way of leaving a mess some mornings.

Of course I realize that teenagers are really in to accordions. 
 
I do know this. 
 
Why else do you think I insist on playing so loudly?

We meant to fish every year. We rarely managed to make it to the water. 
 
Eventually, gradually, we stopped setting the plans that we knew we'd fail to honor. 
 
Then we stopped talking about fishing. 
 
Then we stopped talking about anything at all. 
 
Now we're more like imaginary fishing buddies who used to know one another. 
 
A long time ago. 
 
When we failed to fish but were so very good at doing so.

Because. 
 
I'm ill-equipped to juggle the pressure of choosing between the concession of failure and the industry of focused resolution so I reckon I'll just ride this one out and live with the scars.  
 
You'd have to look pretty closely to see their signs anyway. 
 
I'm decreasingly inclined to display them in such a well-lit room.

When I sit across from my television I welcome the locally-produced adverts where a carefully-placed lad in the back mouths the lines of the speaker in the front. 
 
It's always been my way to pick out the lad in the back - the one with no lines of his own.  
 
Maybe that's why he was put there in the first place - for me to see.

I don't believe in ghosts but have interacted with two.  
 
This tends to undermine my natural state of stubbornness and skepticism.  
 
I would have preferred to interact with hobos or Scientologists as I'm convinced of the existence of both. 
 
They scare me more than ghosts though.

She hates the way the cats look at her and seems angry at me for this.  
 
She would do well to understand that it's the cats who decide how to look.

I slipped on the ice as I made my way across the pavement. If only I could will the clarity and focus that mark the fraction of a second when my instincts sense an impending fall.  
 
If only I could be that way by design. 
 
I've heard it said that it's not the falling that inspires such dread. It's the landing.

My hope for you is that you never know tornado trees.

I sent her a text message that read "STOP texting at school, genius." 
 
She replied, "i'm not. ok."

"The only one who could ever reach me was the son of a preacher man," she said, "but you'll do." 
 
And so we married and it took.