Just before he'd slipped into a coma, he'd had the strong urge to run to a pharmacy and slug down some Pepto-Bismol.

Jocasta wasn't Jocasta's name: her real name was Joanne. She changed it when she was thirty-eight because, as she said what can you do with a name like Joanne? Too nice. She didn't dye her hair green or wear a safety pin in her ear but calling herself Jocasta was the equivalent. Good taste kills, said Jocasta.

There is inherently no ordering to the modification and no hierarchy of modification: that is, both adjectives modify the substantive and both apply equally to the substantive[…]

But these days just as knitting, sewing, needlepoint, and so many other femalecentric traditions are coming back into vogue, the younger, hipper set is starting to see the value in taking up the trowel.