And what I thought, every time I thought about my father, every time his name came up, was quite simply: I WANT TO KILL YOU. I wanted to be more mature, more reasonable, I wanted to have a big, fat, forgiving heart that could contain all this rage and still find room for kind, beneficent love, but I didn't have it in me. I just didn't.

So many more cycles of elation of the first kiss, and devastation when it's over.

Age is a terrible avenger. The lessons of life give you so much to work with, but by the time you've got all this great wisdom, you don't get to be young anymore.

I was meant to date the captain of the football team, I was going to be on a romantic excursion every Saturday night, I was destined to be collecting corsages from every boy in town before prom, accepting such floral offerings like competing sacrifices to a Delphic goddess.

Into every sunny life a little rain must fall.

Sometimes it feels like we're all living in a Prozac nation. The United States of Depression.

It seemed like this was one big Prozac nation, one big mess of malaise. Perhaps the next time half a million people gather for a protest march on the White House green it will not be for abortion rights or gay liberation, but because we're all so bummed out.