I laughed and pointed out that "Hash Browns Mean Nothing Without You" was a pretty good name for a band. "Or a song," the Duke said, and then she started singing all glam rock, a glove up to her face holding an imaginary mic as she rocked out an a cappella power ballad. "Oh, I deep fried for you / But now I weep 'n' cry for you / Oh, babe, this meal was made for two / And these hash browns mean nothing, oh these hash browns mean nothing, yeah these HASH BROWNS MEAN NOTHIN' without you.

Nothing was happening, really, but the moment was thick with mattering

There's some people in this world who you can just love and love and love no matter what.

Do not worry too much about your lawn. You will soon find if you haven't already that almost every adult American devotes tremendous time and money to the maintenance of an invasive plant species called turf grass that we can't eat. I encourage you to choose better obsessions.

The whole thing was the precise opposite of what I figured it would be: slow and patient and quiet and neither particularly painful nor particularly ecstatic

So I let her go, too. And I'm sorry.

But it was sure a privilege to love him, huh?" I nodded into his shirt. "Gives you an idea how I feel about you," he said. My old man. He always knew just what to say.