He finished his drink. 'I don__ like mornings either,' he said. __hat__ why I__ a writer.

I don__ know any writers who don__ drink.

Writers make everybody nervous but we terrify Silly Service workers. Our apartments always look like a front for something, and no matter how carefully we tidy up for guests we always seem to miss the note card that says, "Margaret has to die soon." We own the kind of books that spies use to construct codes, like The Letters of Mme. de Sevigne, and we are the only people in the world who write oxymoron in the margin of the Bible. Manuscripts in the fridge in case of fire, Strunk's Elements in the bathroom, the Laramie City Directory explained away with "It might come in handy," all strike fear in the GS-7 heart. Nobody really wants to sleep with a writer, but Silly Service workers won't even talk to us.

The food we were given was no more than eatable, but the patron was not mean about drink; he allowed us two litres of wine a day each, knowing that if a plongeur is not given two litres he will steal three.

When you paint late at night, drinking beer or wine or both, you gotta be very careful to watch what you are doing...

Never underestimate the audacity of the small minded and slightly crapulous.A rather bleezed young neighbour decided to have a grammar battle with me. It lasted all of two seconds.I said something slightly amicable, and he responded with, __ou sure that's how you use that word?__ put down my laundry basket and turned to him slowly and deliberately.__o you really want to have this discussion with me, son, or do you want to go home and rethink your life?__e grumbled and vanished.