Cotner and Fitch make it their business to overhear and transcribe accurately the conversations of their fellow New Yorkers. Recipee for madness or the birth of Nouveau Zen?

I mean, when else am I going to be in a Pink Pussy Cat Lounge in the Kidney Room with an eighty-year old man asking me to hold his pink dildo strap-on as he goes down on it?

(From the Diary of Nanette Jenkins, NOVEMBER 1993)
Yesterday was my 39^th birthday, as depressing a personal milestone as any I’ve experienced, with the possible exception of my wedding day with Stanley. Maybe this one was worse—I’m old, and I’ve still got Stanley. Not that he doesn’t try, poor dear. He’s always trying to understand me—a noble effort, given his limited resources. I guess that’s why I stay with the big lug. That, and the executive vice-presidency he holds at US West.

I come home one night from the bar, on my bicycle, to find what sounds like a garbled message on my voice messaging service to be what is possibly the neighbors next door arguing. I listen for a little bit, unsure of whether or not this is a recording on my phone of an earlier discussion or the phone’s two-point-four gigahertz antenna picking up an actual conversation going on next door

A couple of weeks after arriving in Bucharest, I received an invitation to attend a party. The purpose of the get-together was to welcome the new Fulbrighters, and at the gathering was a Romanian professor of British Studies. I remembered him from my previous posting, five years before, but we hadn't interacted much. British Studies and American Studies in Romania are rivals for students interested in pursuing English-language study, and the American and British departments can sometimes resemble belligerent fiefdoms.