Shirley

A recent morning in April Now for some cup-half-empty cup-half-full thoughts. It was only their fence the cows broke through, upside the hill, not also the fence across the road. So that was nice. They probably had their sights set on the cows downside the hill, thinking to mingle, but the other herd’s farmer keeps up his fences. Besides the mooing and bawling, there’d have been a bigger crowd standing in his creek and dropping in their pies . Ug. More E. coli coursing toward the glacial downstream pool and shady bank we used to call our beach. Also it was just cows, my word, not lady cops stationed in the middle of the road, watching me thrust my phone up to the windshield to record and then nabbing me . Whew. Cops on our road, the kind that pretend they’re checking for drunk drivers but in fact have their eyes out for scared sober persons, could mean those selfsame individuals, hardworking, generous, disinclined to even lie or steal, getting dragged away in handcuffs. Well...

What is wrong with this woman? I’d like to know. Somebody with the gall to tell Terry Gross— in Wednesday’s interview —that she, Amanda Peet, thinks constantly about getting a face lift? That she worries about the sagging? What could be weirder, more boneheaded? Can she even see past her nose? Who does she think she is? Who does she think she’s talking to? I was at a function, she tells Terry. A premiere party. And when I was leaving, an older, quite beautiful woman across the room stood up and yelled “Amanda!” She made a beeline for me and sort of opened her arms and said “I love” — and I thought she was going to say “your performance.” Instead she said “your wrinkles.” No, responds Terry . Not like she’s shocked by that word wrinkles . More like, aghast at Amanda ’s fatuousness. I love that you haven’t had a face lift , says Terry. I love that you’ve kept your face. Terry tells Amanda, A face is such a n important tool . You have such really nuanced facial expressions in...

You do what you can. Some come, and then more come and you get a tad dizzy , not in the falling-down sense, maybe more like foggy and dazed, but it’s okay, it’s okay. Every single bed in the house is taken, and the upstairs loveseat, and the living room sofa, and every night you load the coffeemaker and move it to the windowsill in your bedroom so in the dark of morning the drip drips maybe won’t wake the sofa child and everybody upstairs and you can get a few minutes for your brain. Or, that’s the hope. (Your husband’ll fall straight back to sleep.) (Once, i n the middle of the night, you f ind the sofa child still on the living room carpet, dead to the world, because h ours previous, getting settled, he thought the sofa was too ho t, but i n the mornin g you see he’s crawled up where he belongs and he still has Lulu with him, she must’ve crawled right along up with him, and she’s quietly wagging, not disturbing hi s slumber , just watching you out of her huge moon eyes. So that...