The prospect of a world that contains neither humans nor Z's is not so terrifying. Nature will take its world back. Animals will frolic and fight. There will be no lord of the manor, which is not such a bad thing, because it seems to me that people have done a pretty poor job of guiding the biosphere for the last few thousand years.

They like their coffee like they like their ex-boyfriends: bitter.

Could the two people who are making out please be quiet?" the Colonel asked loudly from his sleeping bag. "Those of us who are not making out are drunk and tired.

i know he's been looking forward to this--and i know that i've been looking forward to this. but now i have to stop looking forward and start looking at where i am. it's hard.

So often we try to make other people feel better by minimizing their pain, by telling them that it will get better (which it will) or that there are worse things in the world (which there are). But that's not what I actually needed. What I actually needed was for someone to tell me that it hurt because it mattered. I have found this very useful to think about over the years, and I find that it is a lot easier and more bearable to be sad when you aren't constantly berating yourself for being sad.

The Colonel's hand was so little, and I grabbed it tight, his cold seeping into me and my warmth into him. 'I memorized the populations,' he said.

Maybe 'okay' will be our 'always