Personal flaw: did you ever notice that the people who spend a lot of time talking about writing aren’t actually writing?

I am in love with Carole Maso thanks to Charlie Jensen who mentioned her a few months back. I went out and ordered most of her books. She’s brilliant. She’s bitter. Isabel was looking at her author photo and said she has angry lips. I need angry lips.

What she’s done is invent her own tongue: language has an enormous capacity to lie, to make false shapes, to be glib, to make common widgets, three parts this, two parts that. Despite all efforts to tame it, manage it, control it, outsmart it, language resists our best efforts; language is still a bunch of sturdy, glittering charms in the astonished hand.

Sixth grade recess has its own language:

-if you like someone steal their shoe then run
-one piece of chocolate cake makes you are a slave for a day
-a half a piece makes you a slave for just recess
-no one in there right mind gives a way a whole piece of chocolate cake
-there is a game site on the internet which asks questions about Dorothy Parker
and if you have a mom who is a poet and actually knows who Dorothy Parker is, you can charge your friends
-your mom will make you give back the money
-spinning really fast in a circle is fun
-if you love the person YOU THROW THE SHOE