Diary of a Diva
“I’m going to put the tonic, Aperol, and sodium alginate in that container, and then you need to emotion-blend it while I’m over here mixing the calcium lactate and water in this container.”
At some point, we became accustomed to framing our discussion around food choices in moral terms. It’s stupid, and we need to stop.
“If you think you’re done, Buster, think again,” he said to the machine as if it could understand him. “I’m just going to keep running you until that floor is clean.”
“I have a confession to make. The four of us tried the escape room downtown.” I didn’t understand why it was a big deal until she finished her confession: “We didn’t make it out.”
All my new materials may have been “professional quality” and “intended for adults,” but when the tip of the pencil touched the page, it was childlike joy that coursed through my veins.
I couldn’t get the idea of death out of my mind. It occurred to me that the only way to control the most unsettling aspect of the inevitability of death was to plan the when and where.
“I think Madonna’s trying too hard to appear young,” said the oldest among us. “Why can’t she just age gracefully? It’s embarrassing, really.”
“Every single conflict can be boiled down into one underlying problem, and that’s one person in the family not being happy with another person’s choices.”
“The less you have, the easier it is to get dressed and ready. You only keep things you actually like, or as KonMari says, things that bring you joy.”
“You want every person who works for you in any capacity to be able to make the same kind of intuitive decisions you would make, and you’re absolutely unrelenting when they don’t.”
Even the receptionist at work, who was probably around 40 at the time, took to singing at me each time I passed her desk, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.”
“I think there’s this fear about it,” David said. “I mean, when I decided to shave my head — that took years of building up courage. Which is ridiculous, because it would have grown back in a matter of weeks.”
“Holding a baby skunk is on my bucket list,” I said. Bob shot David an Is she for real? look, and David assured him of my sincerity.
I learned that Frank was the first reporter at the scene of that horrific PSA plane crash in 1978, the one I grew up hearing about. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting. How had I not known that?
“It’s just — who does that? What kind of person smashes up someone’s parked car and then leaves without making any attempt to find out who owns it?”
Gary held out his arm and called, “Habibi!” Gasps traveled like a stadium wave as the falcon, rings affixed to its ankle, swooped low down the aisle and then landed on Gary’s glove.