edith zimmerman

This sea creature loves white wine! Also, I’ll be reading [really old stuff] at the Supershow at CoCo 66 in Greenpoint in a couple of weeks. July 8. Come by if you’re free! And please say hi!

After a while, chopped-off head girl got tired of having no body. “Everyone thinks I’m a freak,” she said to her friends. And even though her friends told her she wasn’t, she still felt self-conscious sometimes. But then one day she read online about a guy who lost part of his finger in an accident and afterward got a fingernail tattooed to the stump. “That’s it,” she thought to herself. So the next day she went to a tattoo parlor and got a hyper-realistic body tattooed to the bottom of her neck. It was such a trompe l’oeil that when she went out you could only tell she was missing a body once you got to know her. “I just thought she always stood really still,” people would say. “I had no idea it was a tattoo.”

Quick note—I’m doing two readings in the next couple weeks:

Paper Cone Stories on Wednesday, April 28, from 8 - 10pm, at Jack’s Stir Brew in the West Village. It’s free, there will be beers and mimosas (exclusively? I’m not sure), and the other readers are Bob Powers, Leon Neyfakh, Akiva Gottlieb, and Chris Fleming. RSVP here, or just click there for more info.

Big Terrific on Wednesday, May 5, from 8:30 - 10:30pm, at Cameo in Williamsburg. It’s free, there will be all kinds of food and drink because it is a bar/restaurant, and I’m not sure who the other performers will be, but the show should be awesome, because it is the “best stand-up in NYC,” according to New York magazine, which also happens to be the place I now work, although I had nothing to do with that.

OK, that’s it—I’m just going to be reading stuff from here, I think, or maybe from the Awl or the one thing I wrote for the Huffington Post. Nothing too exciting, but it’d be awesome if people came! And if you do, please say hi!

I wish I could invent a house that I only had to clean once and it would stay clean forever. Every so often I’d test it by sprinkling little bits of dirt on the floor, but it’d always just disappear instantly. And even if I dumped out an entire bag of soil, it would all just magically vanish. But then eventually I’d think, “Where’s it all going?” and I’d keep thinking about it until it really started to bug me. Then I’d just be thinking about it all the time, feeling really uncomfortable, until one day I wondered what would happen if I covered myself in dirt and threw myself on the floor. So I would, and I’d stand at the top of the stairs, and I’d take a deep breath, and I’d jump off, head first.

A very short story.

Once upon a time there was a fart who ran away and lived in a tree. Her mom was like “OMG you’re going to get lost, come back down and hide inside this blanket,” but the fart was like “Literally Mom shut up, let me live!!!” But it was a sad story because the fart got picked up by the wind and she died.

The girl with just a head and no body had no problem meeting guys. Everywhere she went on her special rolling cart, guys were always flirting with her and trying to buy her drinks, and she almost always said yes. She needed only the smallest bit of alcohol to get drunk, though, so she wore a special headband that had a tablespoon attached to it, and when she went on dates, she’d tell guys, “I’m only allowed to have this much tonight,” and when she’d say “this” she’d look down and indicate the tablespoon with her eyes. And the guys would be like, “All right,” and they’d use it to feed her just enough of whatever she wanted. But then things would always be going so well that eventually she’d say, “Oh, just this once because I’m having so much fun—give me another tablespoon.” And the guys would be like, “Are you sure?” and she’d be like “Of course!” And so they’d give her another tablespoon, but she’d immediately throw it up because there’s only so much space at the back of her throat for alcohol to pool, and she’d have already filled it up the first time. And then the guys would say, “Oh my god, are you okay?” and she’d take a moment to lick her lips off and clean herself up a bit, and then she’d say, “I always forg-head about that part!”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving on my bookcase, so I turned to check it out. I thought worst-case scenario there would be a bug walking on one of the shelves, so I was surprised to see a bony old woman crawling down the front of the bookcase with her head on backward. She was scrambling so fast I barely had time to say hi before she made it down the bookcase, across the floor, and up to my—hold on, here she is.

Hi! I’m doing a handful of readings this month:

-Wednesday, February 3: Big Terrific comedy show, hosted by Gabe Liedman and Max Silvestri, at Cameo in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Doors at 8pm, show at 8:30pm. Other performers include Kristen Schaal, Joe Randazzo, and Julian McCullough. Free.

-Tuesday, February 9: Get Off Your Knees comedy show, hosted by Sara Schaefer, at the Bell House, in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Show at 8pm. I believe it will be $5, and I’m not sure who the other performers are!

-Sunday, February 14: Heartbreak Hotel Valentine’s Day show, hosted by Jon Friedman, also at the Bell House, in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Show at 8pm. Other performers include so many people, and then it turns into a party! Not sure if what it costs. It might be $5? Or free. Or maybe $10.

-Thursday, February 18: Steamboat literary humor series, hosted by Scott Jacobson, Jason Reich, and Bob Powers, at Greenlight Bookstore, in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. I don’t know much about this one, but I’m pretty sure it’s happening, and I think it’s at 7:30pm and is free.

-Friday, February 19: Tumblr Reads: Internet Writers IRL. There’s a whole bunch of awesome people reading here, like Choire Sicha and Julie Klausner and Matt Gallaway and Emily Gould, and it’s at Housingworks Bookstore, in Soho. An open bar starts at 6:30pm, and then the show starts at 7:30pm. I think it’s free.

ANYWAY, obviously I’m just going to be reading the same five stories at all of these, all of which you can read for free here, but if you’re not doing anything and feel so inclined, please do come by and say hi

Do you ever wish you woke up in the hospital? All your loved ones would be there, and a doctor would look down at you with a serious expression and say, “You were in a very serious accident, and unfortunately we had to make several major amputations. We removed both your arms and your legs, and we also removed your complete torso and upper body.” You’d absorb his words for a couple moments, silently, and then you’d ask them to bring a mirror and hold it up for you. You’d look into the mirror and see yourself, just a head lying on a pillow with hair spread out around you and a bandage at the bottom of your neck. Everyone would be looking at you, expecting you to freak out, but instead of freaking out, you’d smile and say something like, “Well, looks like I’m ahead of the game,” and everyone would feel instantly overcome by your unbelievable, almost inhuman, sense of humor. Soon word would spread all over the hospital about the incredible girl on the fourth floor who got her entire body removed except for her head but was still cracking jokes and living gracefully, and everyone would just marvel at the beauty of the human spirit.

A very short story.

“So, do you come here often?” he asked, leaning toward me with a twinkle in his eye. We had been exchanging flirtatious glances across the bar all night—finally he was making a move.

“Yes,” I said, with a playful smile.

“Oh really?” he said.

“Yup, I come here every day, actually,” I said. “On weekdays they open at five, so I get here fifteen minutes before that to wait outside, and then on weekends they open at noon, so I get here a lot earlier.”

“Huh,” he said, giving me a funny smile. “You really do come here often, I guess.”

“Yup, there’s no one else who comes here as much as me—you can ask the manager. They even let me keep stuff in the bathroom.”

“Ah,” he said, and looked around the room.

“One time I fell down over there and hit my head,” I said, pointing to a corner in the bar, “but no one noticed so I even got to stay here overnight.”