It was one of the paradoxes of parenting that the children you wished you had were actually the versions of your own children that other parents saw.
Sometimes I worry that I’m self-obsessed, and then I worry that I’m thinking about myself too much.
It didn’t matter what they weren’t; it only mattered who they were.
Since when had my little kid turned into the Spanish Inquisition? Nobody expects that.
As her good friend Leah once said, she wasn’t mean; she was painfully accurate.
Mind you, these were professional children, the offspring of creative people and deep thinkers, who’d marveled over them as babies, encouraged them to express themselves as toddlers, and wished they’d been more consistent and mean to them now that they were old enough to sass back.
I’m lonely,” the young character Ulysses said, “and I don’t know what I’m lonely for.
Sartre said hell was other people, but that was only because the 405 hadn’t been built yet.
You grew up in a family, you left that family and then, life permitting, you built your own family using much of the same material.
I watched you and Edward. People who are going to kiss do it with their eyes first.
Phil wasn’t really saying any of this, of course, because he’s a cat and cats don’t talk, but his voice in her head was listing her dream dads.
We’re family; you can ignore us completely. We’re like succulents: Minor occasional attention is entirely sufficient.
Annabel nodded at her, turning to climb into her own seat, fastening her own harness with the self-assurance of a test pilot on his fiftieth run, rather than someone with no front teeth and a Dora barrette in her hair.
I was lounging in the kitchen, enjoying the small fermata between emptying the dishwasher and reloading it. It’s a glamorous life.
How many people do we encounter every day who might be related to us, or simply people who might have become the best friends we ever had, or our second spouses, or the agents of our destruction, if we only spent more than seconds with them? He realized he was staring.
Annabel was just gazing out the window, presumably pondering the inherent mortality and futility of life. Then I realized she was singing the SpongeBob theme song, so probably not.
I guess I left the window open; there’s rain all over my face.
All new activities are excuses for shopping.
Does the day have a Y in it?
Nina often reflected that LA was not a pretty city, architecturally speaking, but the sky made it beautiful several times a day. As with all things Hollywood, the lighting guy is God.
Her cat, Phil, was sitting on the gate waiting for her. Phil was a tabby of the brown and cream variety, with a black tip to his tail and white feet. He jumped down as the gate opened and preceded her up the stairs, the tip of his tail forming a jaunty accent like the marker flag on a toddler’s bicycle.