The only love that feels like love is the doomed kind. (Fun fact.)

The Buddhists say there are 121 states of consciousness. Of these, only three involve misery or suffering. Most of us spend our time moving back and forth between these three.

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.

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

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

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.

To live in a city is to be forever flinching.