aquarium to cover the story of two hooded seals who’ve been brought together to mate but have refused to have anything to do with each other. I write a story. I think it’s funny. I turn it in. I hear laughter from the city desk. They think it’s funny too. I am hired permanently. I have never been happier. I have achieved my life’s ambition, and I am twenty-two years old.
I may not be a newspaper reporter forever
One night I go to a bar near the Post with one of my fellow reporters and the managing editor. It’s been raining. After quite a few drinks, the managing editor invites us to his home in Brooklyn Heights. When we get there, he tells me to stand on the stoop in front of the house. There’s an awning over one of the windows. As I step into position, he lowers the awning, and about ten gallons of water drench me from head to toe. He thinks this is hilarious.
My life changes
I write a magazine article about having small breasts. I am now a writer.
What my mother said (2)
I now believe that what my mother meant when she said “Everything is copy” is this: When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you; but when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s your laugh. So you become the hero rather than the victim of the joke.
I think that’s what she meant.
On the other hand, she may merely have meant, “Everything is copy.”
When she was in the hospital, dying, she said to me, “You’re a reporter, Nora. Take notes.” It seems to me this is not quite the same as “Everything is copy.”
My mother died of cirrhosis, but the immediate cause of her death was an overdose of sleeping pills administered by my father. At the time this didn’t seem to me to fall under the rubric of “Everything is copy.” Although it did to my sister Amy, and she put it into a novel. Who can blame her?
How she died: my version
My mother is in the hospital. Every day, my father calls and says, this is it, they’re pulling the plug. But there is no plug. My mother comes home. Several days pass. One day my father says, I’m going to give the nurse the night off. Late that night, he calls to tell me my mother has died. The funeral home has already come and taken away her body. I go to their apartment. It’s four in the morning. I sit with my father for a while, and then we both decide to take a nap before the next day begins. My father reaches into the pocket of his bathrobe and pulls out a bottle of sleeping pills. “The doctor gave me these in case I was having trouble sleeping,” he says. “Flush them down the toilet.” I go into the bathroom and flush them down the toilet. The next morning, when my sisters arrive, I tell them about the pills. My sister Amy says to me, “Did you count the pills?”
“No,” I say.
“Duh,” she says.
I was married to him for six years
My first husband is a perfectly nice person, although he’s pathologically attached to his cats. It’s 1972, the height of the women’s movement, and everyone is getting a divorce, even people whose husbands don’t have pathological attachments to their cats. My husband is planning for us to take a photo safari through Africa, and I say to him, “I can’t go on this trip.”
“Why not?” he says.
“Because it’s very expensive and we’re probably going to split up and I’ll feel horribly guilty that you spent all this money taking me to Africa.”
“Don’t be crazy,” my husband says. “I love you and you love me and we’re not getting a divorce and even if we do, you’re the only person I want to go to Africa with. We’re going.”
So we go to Africa. It’s a wonderful trip. When we come back, I tell my husband that I want a divorce. “But I took you to Africa!” he says.
You can’t make this stuff up
I’m working on a magazine story about a woman who was fired from her job as president of Bennington College. I have read a
I may not be a newspaper reporter forever
One night I go to a bar near the Post with one of my fellow reporters and the managing editor. It’s been raining. After quite a few drinks, the managing editor invites us to his home in Brooklyn Heights. When we get there, he tells me to stand on the stoop in front of the house. There’s an awning over one of the windows. As I step into position, he lowers the awning, and about ten gallons of water drench me from head to toe. He thinks this is hilarious.
My life changes
I write a magazine article about having small breasts. I am now a writer.
What my mother said (2)
I now believe that what my mother meant when she said “Everything is copy” is this: When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you; but when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s your laugh. So you become the hero rather than the victim of the joke.
I think that’s what she meant.
On the other hand, she may merely have meant, “Everything is copy.”
When she was in the hospital, dying, she said to me, “You’re a reporter, Nora. Take notes.” It seems to me this is not quite the same as “Everything is copy.”
My mother died of cirrhosis, but the immediate cause of her death was an overdose of sleeping pills administered by my father. At the time this didn’t seem to me to fall under the rubric of “Everything is copy.” Although it did to my sister Amy, and she put it into a novel. Who can blame her?
How she died: my version
My mother is in the hospital. Every day, my father calls and says, this is it, they’re pulling the plug. But there is no plug. My mother comes home. Several days pass. One day my father says, I’m going to give the nurse the night off. Late that night, he calls to tell me my mother has died. The funeral home has already come and taken away her body. I go to their apartment. It’s four in the morning. I sit with my father for a while, and then we both decide to take a nap before the next day begins. My father reaches into the pocket of his bathrobe and pulls out a bottle of sleeping pills. “The doctor gave me these in case I was having trouble sleeping,” he says. “Flush them down the toilet.” I go into the bathroom and flush them down the toilet. The next morning, when my sisters arrive, I tell them about the pills. My sister Amy says to me, “Did you count the pills?”
“No,” I say.
“Duh,” she says.
I was married to him for six years
My first husband is a perfectly nice person, although he’s pathologically attached to his cats. It’s 1972, the height of the women’s movement, and everyone is getting a divorce, even people whose husbands don’t have pathological attachments to their cats. My husband is planning for us to take a photo safari through Africa, and I say to him, “I can’t go on this trip.”
“Why not?” he says.
“Because it’s very expensive and we’re probably going to split up and I’ll feel horribly guilty that you spent all this money taking me to Africa.”
“Don’t be crazy,” my husband says. “I love you and you love me and we’re not getting a divorce and even if we do, you’re the only person I want to go to Africa with. We’re going.”
So we go to Africa. It’s a wonderful trip. When we come back, I tell my husband that I want a divorce. “But I took you to Africa!” he says.
You can’t make this stuff up
I’m working on a magazine story about a woman who was fired from her job as president of Bennington College. I have read a
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