“Maybe Del Martin wouldn’t want to immolate himself on national television. That was certainly possible. Not everyone can avoid being a sissy”
Ecochondriacs, p. 145
Pronounery
“That had been given to them by an overworked staffer at the DNC who had needed to get a few things off his desk. I use the phrase his desk advisedly because this staffer, now going by Heather, was already transitioning, with fake breasts and everything, and to apply the old pronoun might entail legal difficulties for, as the Victorians would have put it, the present writer. But the legal team for the Satiric Writers Guild is a crackerjack team in every respect, and so I have made the decision to simply proceed. Let it stand. Stet. Whatever the editors may say about it, stet. Where was I?”
Ecochondriacs, p. 132
Discombobulated, In Other Words
“He sat down at his desk. It, like the rest of the office, was in tatters. If decorators had terms for this kind of thing, they would probably narrow it down to a choice between High Disheveled and Early Hand Grenade”
Ecochondriacs, p. 128
A Pleasant Surprise
“Many ordinary folks have noticed that the onset of panic has the unfortunate effect of scattering their wits. Hugh, whose wits were usually scattered already, discovered much to his great surprise that his panic was out there gathering up all his wits, and helping them all to walk in a straight line”
Ecochondriacs, p. 127
A Critique on the Stringent Side
“‘There is a section in my chapter ten where I, um, critique a paper you submitted to The Journal of Climate Change.’ This was a polite way of putting it. Larry had actually gone through her paper with a weed whacker, the kind with metal blades”
Ecochondriacs, p. 118
Barely Almost
“It was not a hit-and-run, but rather an almost-hit-and-run-even-faster”
Ecochondriacs, p. 115
Like Bubble Gum and Rocky Road
“He had found out she was a Christian during his first visit to the office, which is why he was willing to ask her out, but Christians come in all flavors, and some of them wouldn’t pair nicely with the flavor that Larry knew himself to be”
Ecochondriacs, p. 114
With a Scar on His Cheekbone
“Del looked around the room like he was about to see some classified material to a swarthy Russian named Oleg.”
Ecochondriacs, p. 111
Or Any Other Kind of Fun House
The gym “was not anything like one of those techno-mart wall-to-wall muscle factories. He detested those. Mirrors everywhere, as though a gym was supposed to be some kind of a satanic and narcissistic fun house”
Ecochondriacs, p. 109
Solid, in Other Words
“Keith was built like a couple of fire hydrants, one of top of the other, and the top one was a little bit wider”
Ecochondriacs, p. 108