I Don't Understand How You Can Be

I Got Out On The Street And Started Crying The Kind Of Hysterical Tears Made Justifiable Only By Turning Off One’s Cell Phone, Putting It To The Ear, And Pretending To Be Told Of A Death In The Family.

You Feel Like Telling Him You're Not Single In The Way That He Thinks You're Single. After All, You Have Yourself. I Think A Lot Of Humor Is About Distracting Yourself. Pretend You're Not Trying To Make It Funny. Because For Some Reason The Effort To Be Funny Smells Like Sulphur In Our Culture.

I Never Asked My Mother Where Babies Came From But I Remember Clearly The Day She Volunteered The Information....my Mother Called Me To Set The Table For Dinner. She Sat Me Down In The Kitchen, And Under The Classic Caveat Of 'loving Each Other Very, Very Much,' Explained That When A Man And A Woman Hug Tightly, The Man Plants A Seed In The Woman. The Seed Grows Into A Baby. Then She Sent Me To The Pantry To Get Placemats. As A Direct Result Of This Conversation, I Wouldn't Hug My Father For Two Months.

My Mother Is A Special Education Teacher But Also An Artist, And My Father An Advertising Executive. They Are About As Wacky As You Can Get Without Being Alcoholics.

I Think The Goal With Any Writing, But Especially Narrative Nonfiction, Is To Put The Blockade Of Putting Your Thoughts In This Unnatural Medium Of Print And Then Trying To Reach Through That And Actually Convey What's Going On, What You Think, And Make People Laugh And Recognize Themselves While Doing It. Definitely The Laughing Thing.