You know, I'm just a very boring, not very funny person in person. I don't feel pressured to be otherwise.

Nothing's a joke with me. It just all comes out like one.

The thing to remember about love affairs," says Simone, "is that they are all like having raccoons in your chimney." ... We have raccoons sometimes in our chimney," explains Simone. And once we tried to smoke them out. We lit a fire, knowing they were there, but we hoped the smoke would cause them to scurry out the top and never come back. Instead, they caught on fire and came crashing down into our living room, all charred and in flames and running madly around until they dropped dead." Simone swallows some wine. "Love affairs are like that," she says. "They are all like that.

The affectionate farce I make of him ignores the ways I feel his lack of love for me. But we are managing.

After a childhood of hungering to be an adult, my hunger had passed. Unexpected fates had begun to catch my notice. These middle-aged women seemed very tired to me, as if hope had been wrung out of them and replaced with a deathly, walking sort of sleep.

They had, finally, the only thing anyone really wants in life: someone to hold your hand when you die.

I do have people in mind when I write. I don't know precisely who they are, however, or how many of them there are.