Construction Funny Quotes

Here I am, in borrowed bones, in makeshift skin, looking out it eyes that are a construct, breathing with lungs that are only a step–a basic rearrangement–away from leaves. How funny, to have a body when I am not a body? How funny, to be inside when I am outside.

A working brain is probably a lot like a map, where anybody can get from one place to another on the freeways. It's the nonworking brains that get blocked, that have dead ends, that are under construction like mine.

He loves weed like Alaska loves sex," the Colonel said. "This is a man who once constructed a bong using only the barrel of an air rifle, a ripe pear, and an eight-by-ten glossy photograph of Anna Kournikova. Not the brightest gem in the jewelry shop, but you've got to admire his single-minded dedication to drug abuse.

Shamu and I have arrived safely in Costa Rica. He was stopped by airport security because he carries enough artillery in his pants pockets to construct a sawed-off shotgun. Evidently, he thought we were headed to Iraq.

Maybe you're meant to be. Love at first sight. It happened to me" "I don't accept that as a hypothesis." "That's because you're a Virgo." "I thought you said virginity was a construct." "A Virgo, you fucking Virgo nightmare. All this and you still don't believe in things. Typical Virgo bullshit.

If you've spent any time trolling the blogosphere, you've probably noticed a peculiar literary trend: the pervasive habit of writers inexplicably placing exclamation points at the end of otherwise unremarkable sentences. Sort of like this! This is done to suggest an ironic detachment from the writing of an expository sentence! It's supposed to signify that the writer is self-aware! And this is idiotic. It's the saddest kind of failure. F. Scott Fitzgerald believed inserting exclamation points was the literary equivalent of an author laughing at his own jokes, but that's not the case in the modern age; now, the exclamation point signifies creative confusion. All it illustrates is that even the writer can't tell if what they're creating is supposed to be meaningful, frivolous, or cruel. It's an attempt to insert humor where none exists, on the off chance that a potential reader will only be pleased if they suspect they're being entertained. Of course, the reader isn't really sure, either. They just want to know when they're supposed to pretend to be amused. All those extraneous exclamation points are like little splatters of canned laughter: They represent the "form of funny," which is more easily understood (and more easily constructed) than authentic funniness.

They told me that nothing was a sin, just a poor life choice. Poor impulse control. That nothing is evil. Any concept of right versus wrong, according to them, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. They said that if anything should force us to modify our personal behavior it should be our allegiance to a social contract, not some vague, externally imposed threat of flaming punishment.

Funny, how accustomed I’d become to visiting her here; how it gave me a strange sense of comfort to know that she and I were living in the same building. Her presence on base changed everything for me; the weeks she spent here became the first I ever enjoyed living in these quarters. I looked forward to her temper. Her tantrums. Her ridiculous arguments. I wanted her to yell at me; I would’ve congratulated her had she ever slapped me in the face. I was always pushing her, toying with her emotions. I wanted to meet the real girl trapped behind the fear. I wanted her to finally break free of her own carefully constructed restraints.

I asked God for religious certainty, and God gave me relationships instead. I asked for solid ground, and God gave me human beings instead—strange, funny, compelling, complicated human beings—who keep puncturing my stereotypes, challenging my ideas, and upsetting my ideas about God, so that they are always under construction. I may yet find the answer to all my questions in a church, a book, a theology, or a practice of prayer, but I hope not. I hope God is going to keep coming to me in authentically human beings who shake my foundations, freeing me to go deeper into the mystery of why we are all here.

We’re all supposed to be mildly horrified and then start constructing the funny details about that-one-time-we-all-got-married-in-Vegas that we’ll share for the next thirty years. There’s no sweetness or kissing, Mia. Only hangovers and regret.

No matter how limited their powers of reason might have been. still they must have understood that living like that was just murder, a capital crime - except it was slow, day-by-day murder. The government (or humanity) could not permit capital punishment for one man, but they permitted the murder of millions a little at a time. To kill one man - that is, to subtract 50 years from the sum of all human lives - that was a crime; but to subtract from the sum of all human lives 50,000,000 years - that was not a crime! No, really, isn't it funny? This problem in moral math could be solved in half a minute by any ten-year-old Number today, but they couldn't solve it. All their Kant's together couldn't solve it (because it never occurred to one of their Kant's to construct a system of scientific ethics - that is, one based on subtraction, addition, division, and multiplication).

Mr. Darcy is a construct designed to make woman feel bad about the partners that they're capable of attracting versus the fantasized image he presents.

To claim that one can never live a positive life with a negative mind is a very negative claim to make!

A working brain is probably a lot like a map, where anybody can get from one place to another on the freeways. It’s the nonworking brains that get blocked, that have dead ends, that are under construction like mine.

We came up to the first tower of the bridge, with a plaque proclaiming who had built it; I stopped to read. John Roebling. Aided by his wife, and then his son. He died during construction. But hey, the Brooklyn Bridge might be here for eight hundred years. I wanted to leave something like that behind. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I felt like I had taken the first steps

Why are the super-rich for socialism? Don't they have the most to lose? I take a look at my bank account and compare it with Nelson Rockefeller's and it seems funny that I'm against socialism and he's out promoting it." Or is it funny? In reality, there is a vast difference between what the promoters define as socialism and what it is in actual practice. The idea that socialism is a share-the-wealth program is strictly a confidence game to get the people to surrender their freedom to an all-powerful collectivist government. While the Insiders tell us we are building a paradise on earth, we are actually constructing a jail for ourselves.

You cannot expect a man to love you, but not because of your body or physical construction. It is like giving a man the option between choosing you and a monkey.

Many items the skunk had were of the highest quality including bathroom vanities and hand and paw washing areas constructed by Finland’s well-known designer, Helsinki.

I think it should be done over, Buddy. …Please make peace with your wit. It's not going to go away, Buddy. To dump it on your own advice would be as bad and unnatural as dumping your adjectives and your adverbs because Prof. B. wants you to. What does he know about it? What do you really know about your own wit? I've been sitting here tearing up notes to you. I keep starting to say things like 'This one is wonderfully constructed,' and 'The conversation between the two cops is terrific.' So I'm hedging. I'm not sure why. I started to get a little nervous right after you began to read. It sounded like the beginning of something your arch-enemy Bob B. calls a rattling good story. Don't you think he would call this a step in the right direction? Doesn't that worry you? Even what is funny about the woman on the back of the truck doesn't sound like something you think is funny. It sounds much more like something that you think is universally considered funny. I feel gypped. Does that make you mad? You can say our relatedness spoils my judgement. It worries me enough. But I'm also just a reader. Are you a writer or just a writer of rattling good stories. I mind getting a rattling good story from you.

Funny, there was a reason that people “built” lives together. Although the choices you made as husband and wife were not bricks, and time was not mortar, you were still constructing something tangible and real.

Oh, I’m sorry!” he said. “I just fell out of the sky. I constructed a helicopter in midair, burst into flames halfway down, crash-landed and barely survived. But by all means – let’s talk about your dining table!” He snatched up a half-melted goblet. “Who puts a dining table on the beach where innocent demigods can crash into it? Who does that?” The girl clenched her fists. Leo was pretty sure she was going to march down the crater and punch him in the face. Instead she looked up at the sky. “REALLY?” she screamed at the empty blue. “You want to make my curse even worse? Zeus! Hephaestus! Hermes! Have you no shame?” “Uh …” Leo noticed that she’d just picked three gods to blame, and one of them was his dad. He figured that wasn’t a good sign. “I doubt they’re listening. You know, the whole split-personality thing—” “Show yourself!” the girl yelled at the sky, completely ignoring Leo. “It’s not bad enough I am exiled? It’s not bad enough you take away the few good heroes I’m allowed to meet? You think it’s funny to send me this—this charbroiled runt of a boy to ruin my tranquillity? This is NOT FUNNY! Take him back!” “Hey, Sunshine,” Leo said. “I’m right here, you know.” She growled like a cornered animal. “Do not call me Sunshine! Get out of that hole and come with me now so I can get you off my island!” “Well, since you asked so nicely …” Leo didn’t know what the crazy girl was so worked up about, but he didn’t really care. If she could help him leave this island, that was totally fine by him. He clutched his charred sphere and climbed out of the crater. When he reached the top, the girl was already marching down the shoreline. He jogged to catch up. She gestured in disgust at the burning wreckage. “This was a pristine beach! Look at it now.” “Yeah, my bad,” Leo muttered. “I should’ve crashed on one of the other islands. Oh, wait – there aren’t any!” She snarled and kept walking along the edge of the water.

Tragedies, I was coming to realize through my daily studies in humanities both in and out of the classroom, were a luxury. They were constructions of an affluent society, full of sorrow and truth but without moral function. Stories of the vanquishing of the spirit expressed and underscored a certain societal spirit to spare. The weakening of the soul, the story of the downfall and the failed overcoming - trains missed, letters not received, pride flaring, the demolition of one's own offspring, who were then served up in stews - this was awe-inspiring, wounding entertainment told uselessly and in comfort at tables full of love and money. Where life was meagerer, where the tables were only half full, the comic triumph of the poor was the useful demi-lie. Jokes were needed. And then the baby feel down the stairs. This could be funny! Especially in a place and time where worse things happened. It wasn't that suffering was a sweepstakes, but it certainly was relative. For understanding and for perspective, suffering required a butcher's weighing. And to ease the suffering of the listener, things had better be funny. Though they weren't always. And this is how, sometimes, stories failed us: Not that funny. Or worse, not funny in the least.

I look up at her, rolling her mouth and smiling down. I look at the map. It’s not a brain, clearly; it’s a map; can’t she see the rivers and highways and interchanges? But I see how it could look like a brain, like if all roads were twisted neurons, pulling your emotions from one place to another, bringing the city to life. A working brain is probably a lot like a map, where anybody can get from one place to another on the freeways. It’s the nonworking brains that get blocked, that have dead ends, that are under construction like mine.

I began to laugh uncontrollably, so hard I nearly fell off the swing, because I knew then for sure he saw the same thing I did. More than that: we were creating it. Whatever the drug was making us see, we were constructing it together. And, with that realization, the virtual-reality simulator flipped into color. It happened for both of us at the same time, pop! We looked at each other and just laughed; everything was hysterically funny, even the playground slide was smiling at us, and at some point, deep in the night, when we were swinging on the jungle gymand showers of sparks were flying out of our mouths, I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe. For hours, we watched the clouds rearranging themselves into intelligent patterns; rolled in the dirt, believing it was seaweed; lay on our backs and sang "Dear Prudence" to the welcoming and appreciative stars. It was a fantastic night: one of the great nights of my life.

I wish we’d got something color though. Like maybe ‘Mary Poppins.’ ” When he said this, I began to laugh uncontrollably, so hard I nearly fell off the swing, because I knew then for sure he saw the same thing I did. More than that: we were creating it. Whatever the drug was making us see, we were constructing it together. And, with that realization, the virtual-reality simulator flipped into color. It happened for both of us at the same time, pop! We looked at each other and just laughed; everything was hysterically funny,

Once the leeks and potatoes have simmered for an hour or so, you mash them up with a fork or a food mill or a potato ricer. All three of these options are far more of a pain in the neck than the Cuisinart- one of which space-munching behemoths we scored when we got married- but Julia Child allows as how a Cuisinart will turn soup into "something un-French and monotonous." Any suggestion that uses the construction "un-french" is up for debate, but if you make Potage Parmentier, you will see her point. If you use the ricer, the soup will have bits- green bits and white bits and yellow bits- instead of being utterly smooth. After you've mushed it up, just stir in a couple of hefty chunks of butter, and you're done. JC says sprinkle with parsley but you don't have to. It looks pretty enough as it is, and it smells glorious, which is funny when you think about it. There's not a thing in it but leeks, potatoes, butter, water, pepper, and salt.

Why are breakfast food breakfast foods?" I asked them. "Like, why don't we have curry for breakfast?" "Hazel, eat." "But why?" I asked. "I mean seriously: How did scrambled eggs get stuck with breakfast exclusivity? You can put bacon on a sandwich without anyone freaking out. But the moment your sandwich has an egg, boom, it's a breakfast sandwich." Dad answered with his mouth full. "When you come back, we'll have breakfast for dinner deal?" "I don't want to have breakfast for dinner." I answered, crossing knife and fork over my mostly full plate, "I want to have scrambled eggs for dinner without this ridiculous construction that a scrambled egg inclusive meal is breakfast even when it occurs at dinner time." “You gotta pick your battles in this world Hazel.” My mom said, “But if this is the issue you want to champion, we will stand behind you.” “Quite a bit behind you.” My dad added, and mom laughed. Anyway, I knew it was stupid but I felt kind of bad for scrambled eggs.

Well, it was a kind of back-to-front program. It’s funny how many of the best ideas are just an old idea back-to-front. You see there have already been several programs written that help you to arrive at decisions by properly ordering and analysing all the relevant facts so that they then point naturally towards the right decision. The drawback with these is that the decision which all the properly ordered and analysed facts point to is not necessarily the one you want.’ ‘Yeeeess...’ said Reg’s voice from the kitchen. ‘Well, Gordon’s great insight was to design a program which allowed you to specify in advance what decision you wished it to reach, and only then to give it all the facts. The program’s task, which it was able to accomplish with consummate ease, was simply to construct a plausible series of logical-sounding steps to connect the premises with the conclusion. ‘And I have to say that it worked brilliantly. Gordon was able to buy himself a Porsche almost immediately despite being completely broke and a hopeless driver. Even his bank manager was unable to find fault with his reasoning. Even when Gordon wrote it off three weeks later.’ ‘Heavens. And did the program sell very well?’ ‘No. We never sold a single copy.’ ‘You astonish me. It sounds like a real winner to me.’ ‘It was,’ said Richard hesitantly. ‘The entire project was bought up, lock, stock and barrel, by the Pentagon. The deal put WayForward on a very sound financial foundation. Its moral foundation, on the other hand, is not something I would want to trust my weight to. I’ve recently been analysing a lot of the arguments put forward in favour of the Star Wars project, and if you know what you’re looking for, the pattern of the algorithms is very clear. ‘So much so, in fact, that looking at Pentagon policies over the last couple of years I think I can be fairly sure that the US Navy is using version 2.00 of the program, while the Air Force for some reason only has the beta-test version of 1.5. Odd, that.

But if the same man is in a quiet corner of a bar, drinking alone, he will get more depressed. Now there’s nothing to distract him. Drinking puts you at the mercy of your environment. It crowds out everything except the most immediate experiences.2 Here’s another example. One of the central observations of myopia theory is that drunkenness has its greatest effect in situations of “high conflict”—where there are two sets of considerations, one near and one far, that are in opposition. So, suppose that you are a successful professional comedian. The world thinks you are very funny. You think you are very funny. If you get drunk, you don’t think of yourself as even funnier. There’s no conflict over your hilariousness that alcohol can resolve. But suppose you think you are very funny and the world generally doesn’t. In fact, whenever you try to entertain a group with a funny story, a friend pulls you aside the next morning and gently discourages you from ever doing it again. Under normal circumstances, the thought of that awkward conversation with your friend keeps you in check. But when you’re drunk? The alcohol makes the conflict go away. You no longer think about the future corrective feedback regarding your bad jokes. Now it is possible for you to believe that you are actually funny. When you are drunk, your understanding of your true self changes. This is the crucial implication of drunkenness as myopia. The old disinhibition idea implied that what was revealed when someone got drunk was a kind of stripped-down, distilled version of their sober self—without any of the muddying effects of social nicety and propriety. You got the real you. As the ancient saying goes, In vino veritas: “In wine there is truth.” But that’s backward. The kinds of conflicts that normally keep our impulses in check are a crucial part of how we form our character. All of us construct our personality by managing the conflict between immediate, near considerations and more complicated, longer-term considerations. That is what it means to be ethical or productive or responsible. The good parent is someone who is willing to temper their own immediate selfish needs (to be left alone, to be allowed to sleep) with longer-term goals (to raise a good child). When alcohol peels away those longer-term constraints on our behavior, it obliterates our true self. So who were the Camba, in reality? Heath says their society was marked by a singular lack of “communal expression.” They were itinerant farmworkers. Kinship ties were weak. Their daily labor tended to be solitary, the hours long.

Since emotions have to be programmed into robots from the outside, manufacturers may offer a menu of emotions carefully chosen on the basis of whether they are necessary, useful, or will increase bonding with the owner. In all likelihood, robots will be programmed to have only a few human emotions, depending on the situation. Perhaps the emotion most valued by the robot’s owner will be loyalty. One wants a robot that faithfully carries out its commands without complaints, that understands the needs of the master and anticipates them. The last thing an owner will want is a robot with an attitude, one that talks back, criticizes people, and whines. Helpful criticisms are important, but they must be made in a constructive, tactful way. Also, if humans give it conflicting commands, the robot should know to ignore all of them except those coming from its owner. Empathy will be another emotion that will be valued by the owner. Robots that have empathy will understand the problems of others and will come to their aid. By interpreting facial movements and listening to tone of voice, robots will be able to identify when a person is in distress and will provide assistance when possible. Strangely, fear is another emotion that is desirable. Evolution gave us the feeling of fear for a reason, to avoid certain things that are dangerous to us. Even though robots will be made of steel, they should fear certain things that can damage them, like falling off tall buildings or entering a raging fire. A totally fearless robot is a useless one if it destroys itself. But certain emotions may have to be deleted, forbidden, or highly regulated, such as anger. Given that robots could be built to have great physical strength, an angry robot could create tremendous problems in the home and workplace. Anger could get in the way of its duties and cause great damage to property. (The original evolutionary purpose of anger was to show our dissatisfaction. This can be done in a rational, dispassionate way, without getting angry.) Another emotion that should be deleted is the desire to be in command. A bossy robot will only make trouble and might challenge the judgment and wishes of the owner. (This point will also be important later, when we discuss whether robots will one day take over from humans.) Hence the robot will have to defer to the wishes of the owner, even if this may not be the best path. But perhaps the most difficult emotion to convey is humor, which is a glue that can bond total strangers together. A simple joke can defuse a tense situation or inflame it. The basic mechanics of humor are simple: they involve a punch line that is unanticipated. But the subtleties of humor can be enormous. In fact, we often size up other people on the basis of how they react to certain jokes. If humans use humor as a gauge to measure other humans, then one can appreciate the difficulty of creating a robot that can tell if a joke is funny or not.

It features characters well over 40 having the best sex of their lives, not a bunch of college kids or post-college kids who have no idea what great sex is. They’re honest, raw, sometimes raunchy, and very often funny, not to mention willing to explore and have a little frisky adventure.

I saw her as she showed herself to the world: fun, smart, sexy. Funny how those things are often a smoke screen from one’s true self. It’s easy to act all those things. Up for adventure. Head nods at complex scenarios when she’s not really listening. Ready for bedroom play even when there is no bedroom. In the beginning, Sophie was all those things. I didn’t know they were a construct. I thought they were key parts of who she was.

don’t know why being funny for someone was such a new idea for me. It had never occurred to me in connection with any other male I had been serious about. Denoon had early on made it clear I was free to include him and his foibles as ingredients and props in my routine if I felt like it, by not objecting when I did. So he was different. Or was it just that I was dealing for the first time in my life with an actual mature male, a concept which up until then I had considered an essentially literary construct and a way of not asking the question of whether or not in fact the real world reduced to a layer cake of differing grades of hysteria, with the hysteria of the ruling sex being simply more suppressed and expressing itself in ritualized forms like preparedness or memorizing lifetime batting averages that no one associates with hysteria. I was surprised at how pleased I felt to get such deep, easy, thorough laughter out of him.

Consider an actual city park in contrast to a faux public space like Universal CityWalk, which one passes through upon leaving the Universal Studios theme park. Because it interfaces between the theme park and the actual city, CityWalk exists somewhere in between, almost like a movie set, where visitors can consume the supposed diversity of an urban environment while enjoying a feeling of safety that results from its actual homogeneity. In an essay about such spaces, Eric Holding and Sarah Chaplin call CityWalk “a ‘scripted space’ par excellence, that is, a space which excludes, directs, supervises, constructs, and orchestrates use.”13 Anyone who has ever tried any funny business in a faux public space knows that such spaces do not just script actions, they police them. In a public space, ideally, you are a citizen with agency; in a faux public space, you are either a consumer or a threat to the design of the place.

I didn’t know that when I married her. I saw her as she showed herself to the world: fun, smart, sexy. Funny how those things are often a smoke screen from one’s true self. It’s easy to act all those things. Up for adventure. Head nods at complex scenarios when she’s not really listening. Ready for bedroom play even when there is no bedroom. In the beginning, Sophie was all those things. I didn’t know they were a construct. I thought they were key parts of who she was.

We take the original plays of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and Markus gives them . . . well, the necessary polish.” “Aren’t the plays good enough by themselves?” Barbara asked. “Well, for the general public they’re sometimes just too difficult and dry, so we cut out the long monologues and concentrate on the funny parts and, above all, the bloody passages. Many of the pieces have not yet been translated into German, and Markus takes care of that, as well.” “I butcher Shakespeare’s plays by turning them into bloody spectacles for the masses,” Markus sighed in despair. “Carefully constructed pentameter, beautiful images—for that the world clearly has no taste nowadays. The more blood, the better. But I myself have written original pieces that—” “Yes, yes,” Malcolm interrupted, “that would be enough to make Shakespeare cry, I know—or simply put him to sleep. I’m afraid you’re boring the ladies, Markus. Just like your plays. We can’t afford experiments. After all, I have a whole troupe to feed,” he said, clapping his hands. “But now it’s time to get back to building the stage. Will you excuse us?” He bowed to Magdalena and Barbara and stomped off toward the stage, but not without first casting a final, reproachful look at his two actors. “Old slave driver,” Markus mumbled and followed him, while Matheo paused a moment and winked at Barbara. “Then can we look forward to seeing you again at tomorrow’s performance? We’ll save a few seats for you up in the gallery. Ciao, signorine.” “Ciao,” Barbara said, batting her eyelashes as Matheo, in one single, flowing movement, jumped back onto the stage. Magdalena grinned at her sister. “Ciao?” she asked. “Is that the way a Schongau hangman’s daughter says good-bye, or are you an Italian contessa addressing her prince just before their wedding?

Father,” he said finally, “I don’t understand why the Council had to question Padan Fain.” With an effort he took his eyes off the woods and looked across Bella at Tam. “It seems to me, the decision you reached could have been made right on the spot. The Mayor frightened everybody half out of their wits, talking about Aes Sedai and the false Dragon here in the Two Rivers.” “People are funny, Rand. The best of them are. Take Haral Luhhan. Master Luhhan is a strong man, and a brave one, but he can’t bear to see butchering done. Turns pale as a sheet.” “What does that have to do with anything? Everybody knows Master Luhhan can’t stand the sight of blood, and nobody but the Coplins and the Congars thinks anything of it.” “Just this, lad. People don’t always think or behave the way you might believe they would. Those folk back there…let the hail beat their crops into the mud, and the wind take off every roof in the district, and the wolves kill half their livestock, and they’ll roll up their sleeves and start from scratch. They’ll grumble, but they won’t waste any time with it. But you give them just the thought of Aes Sedai and a false Dragon in Ghealdan, and soon enough they’ll start thinking that Ghealdan is not that far the other side of the Forest of Shadows, and a straight line from Tar Valon to Ghealdan wouldn’t pass that much to the east of us. As if the Aes Sedai wouldn’t take the road through Caemlyn and Lugard instead of traveling cross-country! By tomorrow morning half the village would have been sure the entire war was about to descend on us. It would take weeks to undo. A fine Bel Tine that would make. So Bran gave them the idea before they could get it themselves. They’ve seen the Council take the problem under construction, and by now they’ll be hearing what we decided. They chose us for the Village Council because they trust we can reason things out in the best way for everybody. They trust our opinions. Even Cenn’s, which doesn’t say much for the rest of us, I suppose. At any rate, they will hear there isn’t anything to worry about, and they’ll believe it. It is not that they couldn’t reach the same conclusion, or would not, eventually, but this way we won’t have Festival ruined, and nobody has to spend weeks worrying about something that isn’t likely to happen. If it does against all odds…well, the patrols will give us enough warning to do what we can.

One of my favorite sayings was relativistic and I would say it every time someone made a funny face at me after I cursed. “People could have decided that 'microwave' was the f-word and everyone would get royally offended each time the word ‘microwave’ slipped from someone’s mouth. It’s absurd,” I would tell them. So, I determined that all words were made equal in my mind, and that I would take offense to none of them. Still, my decision did not change the paradigms of others’ realities. People continued to be offended, and I continued to “not give a microwave” about it. I not only constructed my opinion about which words were good or bad around relativism and postmodernism, but my entire reality.

I think of this whenever someone says to me, “Jerry Lewis says women aren’t funny,” or “Christopher Hitchens says women aren’t funny,” or “Rick Fenderman says women aren’t funny…. Do you have anything to say to that?” Yes. We don’t fucking care if you like it. I don’t say it out loud, of course, because Jerry Lewis is a great philanthropist, Hitchens is very sick, and the third guy I made up. Unless one of these men is my boss, which none of them is, it’s irrelevant. My hat goes off to them. It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good. I don’t like Chinese food, but I don’t write articles trying to prove it doesn’t exist. So my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: “Is this person in between me and what I want to do?” If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you. If the answer is yes, you have a more difficult road ahead of you. I suggest you model your strategy after the old Sesame Street film piece “Over! Under! Through!” (If you’re under forty you might not remember this film. It taught the concepts of “over,” “under,” and “through” by filming toddlers crawling around an abandoned construction site. They don’t show it anymore because someone has since realized that’s nuts.) If your boss is a jerk, try to find someone above or around your boss who is not a jerk.* If you’re lucky, your workplace will have a neutral proving ground—like the rifle range or the car sales total board or the SNL read-through. If so, focus on that. Again, don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions. Go “Over! Under! Through!” and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.

It was funny how you thought you remembered someone. You sketched their face boldly in your mind, but when you saw them again, you realized how far you were from their true likeness. Had he always been that height, for example? Had he moved the way he did, long strides as he reached the table? Had he smiled at her like that? Maybe she’d constructed false memories of him, fake angles.