being with someone for over a year can mean that you love them … but it can also mean you’re trapped.

i have to cross the river of extreme awkwardness in order to get to the paradise on the other side.

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.

Belonging. Togetherness. These words are as complicated and confusing as the word love. It’s probably all the same thing. Or it would be if we let it be. I can only guess from observation.

And once again I think about how people use the devil as an alias for the things they fear. The cause and effect is backward. The devil doesn't make anyone do anything. People just do things and blame the devil after.

I wake up feverish, sore, uncomfortable. Is it sickness or is it heartbreak? I can't tell. The thermometer says I'm normal, but I'm clearly not.

I had always felt that mittens were a few steps back on the evolutionary scale-- why, I wondered, would we want to make ourselves into a less agile version of lobster.