Thought.is

People in this city are tough and cynical and there is nothing – absolutely nothing – that can surprise them. . . there is a sense of community in New York, and being a part of it makes me high.

She’s the only black girl I’ve known that I’ve been sexually attracted to, but Yolanda, like Nancy, just sees herself as everyone’s “friend.” I guess Yolanda’s kind of a female counterpart to myself.

“Didn’t sleeping with Alan cross your mind when you saw him?” I pressed her, jokingly. “Yes,” Avis said, “but it’s my last week here. And besides, it crossed my mind with you, too.” I think I blushed.

When I got home, I found that Josh wasn’t the only one to sell a story today. I got my ninth acceptance. The letter from Stephen Morse of Juice, published in Oakland, said: “Richard – You write well: good, clean, interesting work.”

One evening, while Libby and Les were sitting on the floor, her knees pressed against him, she heard him ask her to marry him, and then heard herself say “Yes.”

Teresa said her sex life in California was practically nonexistent – although she remedied that with Carolyn’s scholarly next-door neighbor, who brought her to orgasm eight times in one night.

It was the first White Christmas in quite a few years. Libby, Avis and I went outside and had a snowball fight and wrote with our fingers on cars and walked around Park Slope as the flakes fell.

On Central Avenue, I picked up a hitchhiker, a raven-haired girl coming from the public library there. She was very pretty, and her perfume made my car smell very good, if only for a little while.

Being a writer is terrific: in what other profession can you have an absolutely delightful day enjoying yourself and then come home at 11 PM to find that you have sold a short story?

I nearly choked on my turkey when Bunny told Grandma Ethel, in talking about her “mood” ring, that she was in a car with a guy the other night and the mood ring said she was “horny.”