Something changed. Somewhere along the line you stopped accelerating.

Things happen, people change,' is what Amanda said. For her that covered it. You wanted an explanation, and ending that would assign blame and dish up justice. You considered violence and you considered reconciliation . But what you are left with is a premonition of the way your life will fade behind you, like a book you have read too quickly, leaving a dwindling trail of images and emotions, until all you can remember is a name.

Most all of the writers I admired when I was in my teens and twenties died young. Fitzgerald lived the longest. He was 44. Dylan Thomas was 39. And then once you're approaching 40, you suddenly think, "Well, maybe I would like to live longer than Fitzgerald or Thomas."

I like the fact that I'm living in the world rather than in a university.

You know, Im always surprised when I read profiles, and they make me sound so jaded. I am so not jaded.

I love to imagine inside the head of a woman.

Yeah, 'Gossip Girl' is a good show. It's a real New York show, like 'Sex and the City.