"January 4th. Phillipe is agitated and taciturn. He says nothing to me and seems to avoid me. He insults members of my family when they come to visit and spends hours locked in a room listening to an old vinyl record we have of 'The Sound of Music' at 78 speed. He has not changed his clothes in over two weeks, but showers daily without undressing first. He shaved the dog. He drops his pants in public squares. He eats nothing but a kind of porridge he makes himself out of rotting potatoes, herring, garlic, maple syrup, and beer. He has small cuts all over his face and hands, I have no idea how he got them. Every morning at dawn he wakes up, sticks his head into a vat of ice water, goes outside and pees on the four corners of our house. He combs his hair with gasoline and picks his nose with a spoon. I'm beginning to worry about him."
"March 16th. Carlos has a theory about Pythagoras and the sound emanating from his 12-year-old washing machine. He repeats it to Stacy as she addresses envelopes for money. The package has not arrived and the weather does not look good."
"June 1st. That's not baseball, that's gentrification."
"August 20th. Sally does not understand. If I joined the march it was not because of my beliefs, but to work up a thirst. Hence the darting into bars, the falling down during the speech and the singing of the wrong national anthems afterwards. I repeat, Sally does not understand me. She does not understand my style."
"September 3rd. If I remember rightly, the sex was good. Who was it with? I believe I may have been present at the time."
"December 24th. Another Christmas Eve. I should let Harold out of the basement, lock up the booze and the firearms, make some phone calls, and look forward to the new year."