Tell myself that I write in a mix of hardboiled and the Economist but with a lotta slice-a-life descriptions a la A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Yes, it's a girl's book but it's also a book about NYC and the people in it. Some of the clearest pictures of my city are between those lines. One Xmas scene stays in my mind - in it, a tree butcher has a contest to give away the trees he can't sell: if you can catch a tree without falling, it's yours. When he prepares to throw his nicest tree, a small, poor girl and her little brother ask for the chance to catch it.

"Oh, Jesus Christ," his soul agonized, "why don't I just give 'em the tree, say Merry Christmas and let 'em go? What's the tree to me? I can't sell it no more this year and it won't keep till next year." The kids watched him solemnly as he stood there in his moment of thought. "But then," he rationalized, "if I did that, all the others would expect to get 'em handed to 'em. And next year, nobody a-tall would buy a tree off of me. They'd all wait to get 'em handed to 'em on a silver plate. I ain't a big enough man to give this tree away for nothin'. No, I ain't big enough. I ain't big enough to do a thing like that. I gotta think of myself and my own kids." He finally came to his conclusion. "Oh, what the hell! Them two kids is gotta live in this world. They got to get used to it. They got to learn to give and to take punishment. And by Jesus, it ain't give but take, take, take all the time in this God-damned world." As he threw the tree with all his strength, his heart wailed out, "It's a God-damned, rotten, lousy world!"

When some of the older boys pulled the tree away, they found Francie and her brother standing upright, hand in hand. Blood was coming from scratches on Neeley's face. He looked more like a baby than ever with his bewildered blue eyes and the fairness of his skin made more noticeable because of the clear red blood. But they were smiling. Had they not won the biggest tree in the neighborhood? Some of the boys hollered "Hooray!" A few adults clapped. The tree man eulogized them by screaming,

"And now get the hell out of here with your tree, you lousy bastards."

Francie had heard swearing since she had heard words. Obscenity and profanity had no meaning as such among those people. They were emotional expressions of inarticulate people with small vocabularies; they made a kind of dialect. The phrases could mean many things according to the expression and tone used in saying them. So now, when Francie heard themselves called lousy bastards, she smiled tremulously at the kind man. She knew that he was really saying, "Goodbye--God bless you."

YASYCTAI: Do something nice today for someone just cause... (10 mins/1 pt)

Her: I was worried you were one of those religious nuts.

Me: I am one of those religious nuts.

Colin: American girls would seriously dig me with my cute British accent.

Tony: You don't have a cute British accent.

Colin: Yes I do! I'm going to America!

Tony: Colin, you're a lonely, ugly, _____. You must accept it.

Colin: Never. I am Colin. God of sex. I'm just on the wrong continent, that's all.

Me: It's not. (pause) The truth is, it's the story of a boy like me looking for a girlie like you. (thinking) And hoping, I mean really, really hoping, that this time, it'll be different.

Me: I just wanted you to know that I'm outside again and it's amazing. Jealous?

Guy2: It's a McGuffin. It's used to catch lions in Scotland.
Guy2: Well then, a McGuffin's nuthin at all.

MiamiK: OK, I like how you did that, but how did you not see that rock on her left hand? I mean it was huge.
Paul: (commiserating) We'll all been there, we've all been there.