To live in a city is to be forever flinching.

But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.

Some women make it look so easy, the way they cast ambition off like an expensive coat that no longer fits.

To live in a city is to be forever flinching.

I had thought loving two people so much would straighten it.

For years, I kept a Post-it note above my desk. WORK NOT LOVE! was what it said. It seemed a sturdier kind of happiness.

Also she signed away the right to self-destruct years ago. The fine print on the birth certificate, her friends call it.