Sunday 5 August 2012

A List - of randomly selected bits taken from the novel I have just finished reading: This Is Where I Leave You (Jonathan Tropper).


The Good Ship Bitsnbobs (this blog) has been listing dangerously to starboard recently. So, in the spirit of “if you can’t beat them join them up into a list," this month – August - i am listing. This is, sort of, explained here.



 


1.  “And if she didn’t mean anything, then why did you mention it?”
     “I’m just making conversation”.
     “I’m your sister, Judd. You don’t make conversation with your sister. You wanted to say her name.”

2.   ….and you can hazard any number of guesses as to what business they might be tending to in the         soft focus of these hushed morning hours when the day is taking its first tentative breaths.

3.  I crawl under my covers and drift off to sleep, still feeling the warm spot where she lay on my chest.

4.  He lumbers out of the room with the unhurried gait of a circus elephant.

5.  Her smile fills the car.

6. Penny wordlessly wraps her fingers around my elbow as we walk, and when I look at her she looks        right back at me, daring me. There has been no time in your life that you wouldn’t have killed for a girl like this to look at you like that. Then she does, and something in you doesn’t respond and you realize that you don’t understand yourself any better than you understand anyone else.

7. I look at her, wondering what it is about her that makes me want to simultaneously devote my life to her and get as far away from her as I can possibly get.

8. You’re terrified of being alone. Anything you do now will be motivated by that fear. You have to stop worrying about finding love again. It will come when it comes. Get comfortable with being alone. It will empower you.

9. “Peter. You didn’t need that kind of headache anyway.”
He shakes his head and smiles faintly. “ I’m seventy-two years old. I drink my coffee alone every morning, and I fall asleep with the T.V. on every night.” He smailes. “There are headaches, and there are headaches.”

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