And that phrase - 'sleeping like a baby.' Some blonde said it blithely on the subway the other day. I wanted to lie down next to her and scream for five hours in her ear.

My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead.

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

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.

When God is a father, he is said to be elsewhere. When God is a mother, she is said to be everywhere.

You think you want the blue skies, the open road, but really you want the tunnel, you want to know how the story ends.