Phil decided infamy was the easiest path to fame.

With a few keystrokes, she deleted her online life as if it had never existed. 

 I spent the entire day trying to come up with something clever and all I got was this lousy sentence. 

Carl was book smart and sometimes clever but certainly not streetwise and definitely not cunning. 

The hot water pelted her, cleansing her flesh but not her spirit. 

 I typed this with one hand since my dog insisted I use the other to scratch his haunches and he can be more demanding than any editor I've ever met. 

 The old attorney's folksy demeanor hid the mind of a chess grandmaster who could outwit the devil himself. 

Even in the noonday sun, her inner light shone more brightly. 

It's always: "wait, wait, wait," until it's: "go, go, go." 

 Kevin couldn't help but Monday-morning quarterback himself, reliving conversations in which he would insert quick comebacks, bon mots, and hilarious quips in place of the blank stares, ums and ahs, and bonehead remarks he'd actually made.

 His friend seemed so full of life until the day he no longer was. 

 I'm repeating myself more and more and I also think I may be repeating myself again. 

 Charles belatedly realized he was just an extra in the movie of his own life. 

Half of Harold's life seemed to be waiting for something to happen while the rest was split up between sleep and television watching. 

 I woke up thinking he was coming to visit this morning but now I'm at a wake. 

Her magical thinking made no headway with the bureaucracy of the IRS. 

The sound of a saxophone from a neighboring apartment fit Sarah's mood that morning. 

Rich believed he was ready for the big time but he wasn't even ready to get out of bed. 

Self-sabotage was his specialty. 

 The snow melted in her hand but the tears froze to her cheeks. 

 Through the mist, Tim thought he caught sight of his father, but it was just his own reflection fractured by the broken glass of a window in the abandoned house where he grew up. 

 "If the pandemic lasts much longer I'll be reduced to writing about my dog, my husband, and the birds in the backyard," my memoirist friend told me during a phone conversation. 

Marcel told them all he'd given up art for chess while secretly working on a masterpiece. 

Their dog made all the important decisions for the family. 

 It was as if she dwelled within a Chopin Nocturne while he lived out a Motörhead song. 

Bang on the piano drunk until two while the dog joins in and wakes the neighbors you never liked anyway. 

 Affection and affectation were closely linked in Alfred's mind when he thought of his mother, although the first word was more of a lack thereof and the other an overabundance. 

 We're learning history and geography lessons in real-time. 

 Identity doesn't need to be static but can be like clothing one slips off and on as needed. 

Dana dawdled the most when she had a deadline. 

He could still vividly recall being wrong during conversations from twenty years ago.