There is no shame in being hungry for another person. There is no shame in wanting very much to share your life with somebody.

But my favorite band is Curbside Life, out of Chicago.

The most important thing for a writer to do is to write. It really doesn't matter what you write as long as you are able to write fluidly, very quickly, very effortlessly. It needs to become not second nature but really first nature to you. And read; you need to read and you need to read excellent books and then some bad books. Not as many bad books, but some bad books, so that you can see what both look like and why both are what they are.

Acceptance, when it comes, arrives in waves: Listen with your chest. You will feel a pendulum swing within you, favoring one direction or another. And that is your answer. The answer is always inside your chest. The right choice weighs more. That's how you know. It causes you to lean in its direction.

In some ways, blogging is like drinking - it gives a person permission to be a total asshole.

It turned out I had always been a smoker. I just hadn't had any cigarettes.

My attraction had been immediate and profound. And it had nothing to do with the way he looked. My attraction was to what resided between his lines.