Kim Chinquee writes with remarkable heart and grace. Her wise capsulizings of love's devastations and of life's roil and disappointments come at you with a sorrowing precision that comforts even as it haunts.

If I have a problem, it is this: there is a store where everything costs a dollar.

Desks are terrible places, no matter how many wheels a chair might have. You can't do much about how drawers fill up.

I've been within an inch of my life.

What could be worse than having to be seen resorting to your own life.

I was a great many far cries from myself.

You get tired of always wondering anew why life has to take the place of youth.