Pleasantness was the machismo of the Midwest. There was something athletic about it. You flexed your face into a smile and let it hover there like the dare of a cat.

I don't have a love life. I have a like life.

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

Make a list of all the lovers you've ever had. Warren Lasher Ed "Rubberhead" Catapano Charles Deats or Keats Alfonse Tuck it in your pocket. Leave it lying around, conspicuously. Somehow you lose it. Make "mislaid" jokes to yourself. Make another list.

Every arrangement in life carried with it the sadness, the sentimental shadow, of its not being something else, but only itself.

But I believed in starting over. There was finally, I knew, only rupture and hurt and falling short between all persons, but, Shirley, the best revenge was to turn your life into a small gathering of miracles. If I could not be anchored and profound, I would try, at least, to be kind.

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