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

A thought experiment courtesy of the Stoics. If you are tired of everything you possess, imagine that you have lost all these things.

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.

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.

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

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

My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead. Women almost never become art monsters because art monsters only concern themselves with art, never mundane things. Nabokov didn't even fold his own umbrella. Vera licked his stamps for him.