What did your mom say?" "She said I better not be pregnant." Janie snorts. "What the hell is wrong with our parents, anyway? Wait -- you're not, are you?" "Of course not! Sheesh, Janers! I may not have gotten the best grades in school, but I'm not st...
In this moment I’m reminded of Thor tutoring me math in the second grade. Thor was a math major in college, and in fact, Thor has an Erdős number of three. This means that Thor studied with someone who studied with someone who studied with Paul Er...
I felt like a trophy child, someone he had around to show off. It felt like it was more important that his daughter was perfect—but, I was his daughter and I was neither of those things. I worked hard to get my grades, and I tried so hard to meet h...
Amber Rorman had told me too that our third grade teacher, Ms. Lizetti, was really a lesbian, which I thought was a disease until I asked Amber and Amber told me to ask her mother who told me to ask my mother, who said, “Lesbians are women who like...
I have a secret. A big, fat, hairy secret. And I’m not talking minor-league stuff, like I once let Joseph Applebaum feel me up behind the seventh-grade stairwell or I got a Brazilian wax after work last Friday or I’m hiding a neon blue vibrator c...
That's the catch about betrayal, of course: that it feels good, that there's something immensely pleasurable about moving from a complicated relationship which involves minor atrocities on both sides to a nice, neat, simple one where one person has d...
Juggling and balancing effectively required that we make clear, legacy-driven choices about what we're trying to keep in the air and how we sequence our movements down the beam. Because the ultimate grade in life is not based on how far and fast we'v...
One good thing about New York is that most people function daily while in a low-grade depression. It's not like if you're in Los Angeles, where everyone's so actively working on cheerfulness and mental and physical health that if they sense you're do...
I've a long time trying to love a brother whose only way of touching me is pain. A long time escaping into music. Practice, lessons, rehearsals that protect me from the hurting parts of life. I've been winning awards, applause, acclaim for my trumpet...
No mathematician in the world would bother making these senseless distinctions: 2 1/2 is a "mixed number " while 5/2 is an "improper fraction." They're EQUAL for crying out loud. They are the exact same numbers and have the exact same properties. Who...
The highest paid Americans read an average of two to three hours per day. The lowest paid Americans don't read at all... ...58% of adults never read another book after they leave high school—including 42% of university graduates... ...43.6% of Amer...
I'm a pretty forgetful guy, but everything she says, I remember. I remember what colour her hair ribbon was when we met on the first day of fifth grade. I remember that she loves orchids because they look delicate but aren't, really. From a single po...
Why does it scare me to think I might be ordinary? I remember when I started first grade and I could hardly pay attention for fear I wouldn't learn to read and write. I didn't want to be like everyone else. I didn't want to have to learn. I wanted to...
The value of me is equal to 5097033198, but also 3051982. The first is my phone number, and the second is my birthday. I assign values to people. My fifth grade bus driver had a Cheeto factor of four.
What you are to me is the guy that I’ve been madly in love with since sixth grade. You’re the guy I think about every night when I’m in bed by myself. You’re the one who doesn’t want me but insists on keeping me tied so close that I can’t...
Secret ceremonies in which malevolent men and women cloaked in hooded robes, hiding behind painted faces and chanting demonic incantations while inflicting sadistic wounds on innocent children lying on makeshift alters, or tied to inverted crosses, s...
The principle of vis inertiae (...) seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one, and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with...
We know – it has been measured in many experiments – that children with strong impulse control grow to be better adjusted, more dependable, achieve higher grades in school and college and have more success in their careers than others. Success de...
believe that you've had most of your important memories by the time you're thirty. After that, memory becomes water overflowing into an already full cup. New experiences just don't register in the same way or with the same impact. I could be shooting...
Billy Costigan: You're seventy fucking years old. One of these guys is going to pop you. As for running drugs, what the fuck. You don't need the pain in the ass, and they're going to catch you. And you don't need the money. Frank Costello: I haven't ...
[first lines] Reporter: This year Zentsuji Middle School number 4's Class E was chosen from among 43,000 Ninth grade classes. This year's game, said to be more blistering than the last - - Oh look there! There she is! The winner's a girl! Surviving a...
