His dog had lost all respect for him, or could no longer stand his scent. Either way, oil spots on the driveway were of more interest to her, and on the rare occasions they occupied the same room, she abstained from meeting his eye.

 She was rich in spirit, but mainly just rich.

I suspect the only true answer to pretty much anything is maybe.

Mistaking scale for importance,
ambition for significance.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget her bewildered expression as they drove her away.

Although he thought of himself as a “regular” there, he always had to wait to be seated. One night as the hostess went looking for his table, he snuck a look at the note next to his reservation. It said asshole.

You lie awake for hours unable to remember if the word is epitaph or epitath. Falling into blackness through a two-letter hole.

She held up her hand and said, no photos. I don’t want to remember anything about this.

When does “verge of collapse” become actual collapse?

I’m going to drag my shit hair and shit beard in my shit car over to my shitty ass apartment, think about your smug superiority and thank god that I’m not you.

The people around him were often depressed. He was a “carrier.”

1) Forced confluences of random or variable systems
2) Dislocation of expected boundaries in relation to contents

In the dream he caught the eye of someone who seemed familiar, a trusted friend of long ago or a forgotten family member, only to realize with a shock that it was a younger, kinder version of himself—a version he’d forgotten had ever existed. Describing it to them, he suddenly burst into tears. He said that three days after the dream his depression had lifted. The dream seemed rather obvious, he said, but the mind likes obvious. Obvious works.

More often now he reached for words but found only word-shaped holes.