I got my undergrad in Creative Writing, and then I didn't get my Masters in obsession, because I figured I already had that covered.

Metz's Perfection chronicles with lapidary precision one woman's climb back to happiness after not just a spouse's death, but also the shocking recognition that her life before that death was not what she had thought it was. The journey is a painful one, but Ms. Metz is much the stronger for having survived to recount it.

Nowadays anyone with a crap laptop and an Internet connection can sound their barbaric yawp, whatever it may be.

The blog is certainly another tool for writers out there to break their way in. But being a blogger does not make you a great writer.

You can never have too much, butter.

Sometimes, if you want to be happy, you've got to run away to Bath and marry a punk rocker. Sometimes you've got to dye your hair cobalt blue, or wander remote islands in Sicily, or cook your way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year, for no very good reason.

The nice thing about having a friend who is crazier than you are is that she bolsters your belief in your own sanity.