I think that if you were somehow able to measure the weight of human kindness, it would have weighed more on 9/11 than it ever had. On 9/11, all the hatred and murder could not compare with the weight of love, of bravery, of caring. I have to believe that.

i have never had anybody talk to me like this. this is not a flirty sixth-grade phone call or bantering with friends or words passed in a note. i feel that if my soul could talk it would talk like this.

Even if you were green and had a beard and a male appendage between your legs. Even if your eyebrows were orange and you had a mole covering your entire cheek and a nose that poked me in the eye every time I kissed you. Even if you weighed seven hundred pounds and had hair the size of a Doberman under your arms. Even then, I would love you.

It would be too easy to say that I feel invisible. Instead, I feel painfully visible, and entirely ignored.

Making love without noise is like playing a muted piano-fine for practice, but you cheat yourself out of hearing the glorious results.

So what do you have to confess now?" I don't know why I'm saying any of this, except that is the truth. "I'm confessing that I don't know if I'm ready for this." "What is 'this'?" "Being open. Being hurt. Liking. Not being liked. Seeing the flicker on. Seeing the flicker off. Leaping. Falling. Crashing.

Luckily, I always travel with a book, just in case I have to wait on line for Santa, or some such inconvenience.