She hated her job and complained about it constantly. But she never applied for another one.
Cheap Excuse
Aimee’s friend approached her months after the funeral, apologizing profusely: “I’m so sorry, because I wanted to be there for you, but I just couldn’t make myself go.” “Yeah,” Aimee replied coolly, “I didn’t really want to go, either.”
Criticize This
I went to dinner once with a critic, a cynic, and a mutant alien life-form from Mars. The critic stuck up his nose and said the food wasn’t good enough to be served to anyone with taste buds, and with a heavy sigh the cynic explained that chefs don’t actually cook for our pleasure or benefit but rather to fulfill their own selfish desire for success – but both men looked bitterly disappointed and wistfully hungry when in one foul swoosh of its crooked, wart-infested finger the mutant alien life-form zapped both of their plates to ashes.
Taste
Just once, he wanted to see a realistic, honest cooking show. The host would taste the final product and instead of always saying, “Uuuuuum—delicious,” they might every now and then say, “Well, it’s usually a bit better than that,” or “Hmm, that one’s a little off, but a tad less curry, and you’ll be fine.”
Choices
She was tired of beating around the bush in a phone call that had lasted too long. Finally she told him, “Pick your choices, because you’re either insensitive and careless, a sadistic asshole or just afraid and embarrassed—but which one is it?”
Peripheral
When was the first time I laid eyes on you and noticed? That last part is crucial, as I feel you were fluttering around me for awhile before I connected that sensation I was being watched with the exact pair of eyes that were watching me.
As You Like It
They tell me, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
If so, I want to be in the audience, living a real life.
Hidden Treasure
I’m sorry your last girlfriend didn’t like it when you spoke to her in metaphors, but she obviously didn’t know what you were worth. Just as a treasure chest is never left in plain sight, one must dig a little deeper to find the treasure within your words.
Intimate Strangers
I was always entranced by your word-ramble poetry, and the beautiful ideas that would fall out of your mouth. But outside of those conversations, we barely spoke to each other at all.
Neurosis
She couldn’t stop going back over certain things she’d done—persecuting herself, and then forgiving herself again by turns. It felt as though she were free-falling through an abyss of self-analysis.
Monsters under the Bed
Night after night they grumbled about being hungry and dared her to step foot on the floor.
Instead, last night she set up a trip-wire and watched them drag her rapist step-father into the shadows, and smiled.
Pop Culture
Of course her best friends were all gay men. They were always saying funny things like: “They should never have hired Sienna Miller to play Edie Sedgewick – Lady Gaga is already playing Edie Sedgewick for free.”
Refill Philosophy
Jimmy said to the bartender, “I’m not one of them guys that gives a crap whether the glass is half empty or half full. Just fill it with somethin’ good.”
Self-criticism
At least, if I were going to be an asshole, I should have been an eloquent one. Nothing’s more pathetic than a bumbling asshole further frustrated and agitated by just how inarticulate they are.
Rugs
The doctor diagnosed him as being anxious about anxiety. “If there’s nothing to worry about,” she said, “you’ll worry about what to worry about, or wonder what it is you should be worrying about so you don’t get the rug pulled out from under you later.”
Philosophy of Potential
These two things are at war: the desire to be settled, established, accomplished in life, the satisfaction of having realized one’s potential in life and then the fear of being trapped, having squandered that potential, or at least simple disgust at the structuring of life that you could only realize one of your potential selves; and then people make you feel so small because they think that’s who you are, your identity, when really you know you could’ve been so many things. You make possibility reality, and there’s comfort in that; but there’s also a sense of loss: what was dynamic has, in a way, become static.
Hiding from the Stars
It was like standing in the middle of an open field on a clear night, trying to hide from the stars. He must have already known what I had done, just like the stars would have seen me all along as I fruitlessly darted and ducked behind fences and bales of hay – and now all I could really do was to march straight up to him and openly reveal my transgression against his loyal love.
Old Habits
She had a tendency to learn about problems she couldn’t solve and stress herself out over them, and so she decided it was best to take on a job she didn’t really care about in order to decompress for awhile. The result was that she still got stressed—only now it was about things that were completely meaningless and absurd.
A Daughter’s Debts
The book was a love story that made her cry and feel more than any other book had made her feel in a long time. She was a little startled by the realization that if anyone had ever loved her with the kind of overwhelming love described in the book, it was no man, but her mother.
Limitless Transgressions
He asked if he had done something to offend her. Without batting an eyelash, she answered: “Give me a timeframe.”