""Somebody offered me a part in a movie." "Why?" she asked, somehow managing to squeeze two syllables out of one word, in the manner of teen actresses in the sitcoms that Harry denied watching. Harry was disappointed by the question. Wasn't a daughter supposed to think her father could do anything? Every time Harry thought he had the hang of having a daughter, he was back at square one."
The guy handed me my plastic bag of purchases, and I don't know why, but taking it in my left hand, I extended my right hand to shake his, only with my index finger pointing out toward him. "President McKinley was assassinated in 1901," I said, adding that a guy came up to him with a bandaged hand concealing a gun and when McKinley reached out to shake hands, he was shot twice.
"Friedman has never really been interested in well-adjusted winners, but rather those on the way up or down, or even better, those going nowhere fast. The neurotic, the unhappy, the malcontent, the put-upon, the outsider, that's patented Friedman territory, and we're the better for it."
"A heady analyst of the world around him, [Rothwell is] overly fond of flashing his intelligence forward in the odd word certain to send you to a dictionary. His sense of other people's voices also jars, as if everyone is gifted with the Queen's English and a perfect philosophical riposte."
I go home. I go to see my other kids, because they need me, but really, because I need them. I take them to dentist appointments and birthday parties. On a play date, a mom confides to me that her son won't stop hitting in nursery school. What should she do, she wonders. I'm stunned by the question. Why ask me? I can hardly keep my kid alive.
