Sublime

On any given day I am all these things and more: stupid, cheerful, misanthropic, cruel, narrow-minded, open, petty—the list goes on and on.

An excellent joke I heard at last night’s signing: It’s late at night and a man is getting ready to go to bed when he hears a knock on his door. He opens it and looks down to see a snail. “Yes,” it says. “I’d like to talk to you about buying some magazine subscriptions.” Furious at being disturbed, the man rears back, kicks the snail as hard as he

Yesterday I caught a wasp and put him in a jar in the living room. Later I threw in a dead bee, and the wasp chewed it up. Last night I poured Canada Dry and Comet into the jar. The wasp rolled over on his back, kicked up his legs, and died in a matter of minutes. I felt really bad about it. Lots of people kill wasps, but I made it suffer. He was

‘I didn’t get you anything,’ said Nathan, with the good cheer of a sinner already absolved, ‘I forgot.’ Then Ronald Macaulay came in with holiness in the pleats of his trousers. The atmosphere thinned, as if the room had been elevated nearer heaven.

Paris In 1976 Dawn Erickson taught me that, in order to ensure good luck, you’re supposed to say, “Rabbit, rabbit,” on the first day of every month. It has to be the very first thing that comes out of your mouth and you have to say it out loud or else it doesn’t work. I’d never been particularly superstitious, but ever