I didn't want to understand. Bert had been thrilled that the police wanted to put me on retainer. He told me I would gain valuable experience working with the police. All I had gained so far was a wider variety of nightmares.

Sometimes it's not the optimist you need, but another pessimist to walk beside you and know, absolutely know, that the sound in the dark is a monster, and it really is as bad as you think. Did that sound hopeless? It didn't feel hopeless. It felt reassuring. It felt - real.

If you have a choice between extra makeup or extra weapons always take the weapons. Just the fact that you're debating between those two choices proves that you're going to need the weapons more.

I wasn't crying, my eyes were running. My eyes were running because there were pieces of zombies all over my toys. Jesus.

He said,'Trust yourself, mon ami. You are not your friend with his so-sad tale. And Anita is not human. Through us she is more than that. Both of us huddle around her humanity like it is the last candle flame in a world of darkness. But by our very love, we make her less human, and more.

Walking your path doesn't mean you don't hurt, it means the pain is worth the progress. Sometimes you have to break something down in order to remake it, and that includes yourself, or it did for me. There were moments when I wept for an easier road, but in the end I would not trade my path for anyone else's. It is mine and the traveling of it has made me who I am, and continues to shape and remold me into the best, happiest, most productive, most playful me, I've ever been.

a pink taffeta evening gown. It looked like it had run away from a junior high prom... The dress looked like a petunia on steroids to me.