Perfect for Mother's Day: the Baby Be of Use series or The Secret Language of Sleep. - - - - |
All relevant details are now available for Lawrence Krauser's dinner/reading event Wednesday evening in Hartford, CT. - - - -
Dear Frito-Lay, Inc., I recently had the pleasure of using your distinctive Doritos Baked Crusted Salmon recipe. Needless to say, it was a rousing success at my dinner party. As soon as I set the casserole dish on the table I had to quickly pull my hands away to protect myself from being bitten or stabbed with a fork! I'm kidding a little bit, but the feedback I got was so overwhelmingly great that I thought I should pass it on to you. Dora, a woman unable to have children of her own, said: "Another winner!" Felix is Dora's husband. He has the hands of a sculptor and is delicately scented. He said: "Is that salsa and honey I taste? Q.E.D.: Quod Erat Delicious!" Catherine kept dropping her napkin, allowing everyone generous looks at her cleavage as she bent over to pick it up. She was wearing a Gossard Gypsy Lace Underwire with a floral design. Catherine has short bangs and walks diagonally through rooms, crisscrossing her own pathways until she has created a hexagram. She does this unconsciously, and had this to say: "I'm not big on seafood, but I love the taste of this salmon!" Teddy works where I work. English is not his first language but you wouldn't know it except now and then when he mixes up something minor, like a preposition. He is extremely handy and is always the first one we call when something breaks around the office, like the copy machine or the printer. I don't know how much he's saved us in repair bills and I mean it's not like it's even his job to fix stuff, but he seems to enjoy it, like maybe he feels like working at a computer all day is sort of a weak man's job, something for a mindless drone to do, while assembling something with your bare hands, working with actual machinery and tools, is respectable, honorable, worthwhile, and uplifting. Teddy said: "Yes, delicious, like always!" Emma is the one I have the crush on. The whole dinner party was actually just an excuse to invite her over, with the others serving as buffers. She didn't know anyone there except for me. I met Emma a few months ago at this party thrown by the Two Matts. I was at this party and Matt W. sort of shoved us together because we both like cooking and so we talked for a while about that but pretty soon ventured out into other topics and, you know, it just flowed so nicely, no awkwardness, just a comfortable meandering that felt totally, totally natural. It was like she was an old friend and we were catching each other up on our lives since we last met! Everyone else at the party seemed boring and easily categorized. Because they were! But Emma was something altogether different and it almost killed me dead to have to leave her and return home. My mind was all cloudy for the rest of the weekend with the way she pronounced "harbor" and the slight pulse in her neck and, most of all, the interlocking patterns our conversation had made. She didn't say a whole lot at my dinner party, but she did say this: "You won't believe this, but I made this same dish last weekend!" I'm serious! All in all, a good time was had by all. Emma kissed me on the cheek on her way out, and now I'm of two minds. The kiss implies that we've reached a certain level of physical comfort and intimacy, the "vocabulary" of our "relationship" has been expanded, as it were, but she was so casual about it, you know, it was like it meant nothing to her, like maybe this was something she does with anyone as she strides back out into the night, the light and smell of someone else's house falling away behind her. I won't read too much into it. Sincerely,
OTHER McSWEENEY'S STORIES:
DeLillo in the Outback By Neal Pollack Post-Valentine's Day Special: State Dates By Alysia Gray Painter Two Previously Known and Fourteen Brand-New Closing Signatures, to be Inserted at the End of Your Love Letters for Valentine's or Any Other Day By Mike Sacks A Short Story About the Academy Awards By Tim Carvell Three Thought Experiments (With Study Questions) By Sean Carman |
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