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coping (more or less) 261 Do It Yourself Lise Menn Some things you have to do for yourself if you want them done right. Ironing your favorite dress with the tricky collar, Making hot chocolate the way you like it. Feeling sorry for you. Nobody else can do it properly. Feel sorry for yourself. Having lived in paradise for however many years, And now finding yourself like the rest of them, the singles Whom you felt smugly sorry for (and how much good do you think that did them?) Now you too have aborted flirtations with men who were hopeless to begin with, Lapses of judgment in attempting lesbian advances, Nights of crying until you finally start thinking about something else Besides the omnipresent question, “Who will love me again? Who will ever love me?” “For I’m not so old And I’m not so plain And I’m quite prepared To . . . ” Yes? What? Look, it’s like falling out of a twenty-story building. All your good friends, they try to puff themselves up for you as soft as possible, But they’re still only couch pillows. They may save your life when you hit them, But you’re still gonna break every bone in your body. 262 the widows’ handbook Feel sorry for yourself. Sure, your tiny steel-ribbed mother told you never to do that, But who the hell is going to do it for you? “Piangi, piangi,” the old man in the opera tells Violetta. “Cry, honey, cry.” Do it right. Do it yourself. ...

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