Dept. of Speculation

"I got a job checking facts at a science magazine. Fun facts the called them. 'The connected fibers in a human brain, extended, would wrap around the Earth forty times.' Horrible, I wrote in the margin, but they put it through anyway."

"Of course, I thought of the drunkard boy in New Orleans, the one I loved best. Each night at the old sailors' bar, I'd peel the labels off his bottles and try to entice him homeward. But he wouldn't come. Not until light came through the window. That one was so beautiful I used to watch him sleep. If I had to sum up what he did to me, I'd say it was this: he made me sing along to all the bad songs on the radio. Both when he loved me and when he didn't."

"Q: Is the sparrow a native of this country? A: It is now, but not long ago there were no sparrows in America. Q: Why were sparrows brought to this country? A: Because the insects were killing so many trees that the sparrows were needed to destroy the insects. Q: Did the sparrows save the trees? A: Yes, the trees were saved. Q: In wintertime when there are no insects and snow is on the ground, does not the sparrow have a hard time? A: Yes, he has a very hard time, and many die of hunger."

"Up until the seventeenth century, it was widely believed that magnets had souls. How else could an object attract or repel?"

""I love autumn," she says. "Look at the beautiful autumn leaves. It feels like autumn today. Is autumn your favorite time of year?" She stops walking and tugs on my sleeve. "Mommy! You are not noticing. I am using a new word. I say autumn now instead of fall.""

"She used to make fun of those people. With their happiness maps and their gratitude journals and their bags made out of recycled tire threads. But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be."

"The only love that feels like love is the doomed kind. (Fun Fact.)"

"She has wanted to sleep with other people, of course. One or two in particular. But the truth is she has good impulse control. That is why she isn't dead. Also why she became a writer instead of a heroin addict. She thinks before she acts. Or more properly, she thinks instead of acts. A character flaw, not a virtue."

"The wife wants to go to the hospital. But she does not want to have gone to the hospital. If she goes, she might not come back. If she goes, he might use it against her. But when she is alone, the objects around her bristle with intent. This is fascinating to her but it must remain a secret."

"The Zen master Ikkyu was once asked to write a distillation of the highest wisdom. He wrote only one word: Attention."

"The yellow bus pulls up. The doors open and she is there, holding something made of paper and string. It is art, she thinks. Science maybe. The snow is coming down again. Soft wet flakes land on your face. My eyes sting from the wind. Our daughter hands us her crumpled papers, takes off running. You stop and wait for me. We watch as she gets smaller. No one young knows the name of anything."