Housework hassles go on, are never resolved, and will probably extend into the afterlife ('Why am I the one who takes the clouds to the dry cleaners?').

Home alone with a wakeful newborn, I could shower so quickly that the mirror didn't fog and the backs of my knees stayed dry. The one-minute hair conditioner was too slow for me.

Why are we, the most medicalized of societies, a culture in pain?

If Jeff Mogil and Ron Melzack are right about genetics and pain, fifty years from now, generic Tylenol tablets will seem as quaint to us as a bottle of sarsaparilla tonic. Instead, we'll take our genotype ID bracely to the local genopharmacologist to order some bespoke pharmaceuticals. Or we may rise at four A.M. to meditate on the part of our nature that is painful and feel better for it. Along with social insurance, we'll carry geno-cards that list our predispositions: photosensitivity, osteoporosis, and poor response to codeine.

When a couple turns domestic, for the first while having to talk about the need for aluminum eaves troughing and other matters only gets in the way of the relationship. Then, magically, these negotiations take the place of the relationship.

Household hollowness comes around in irregular cycles, like meteor showers. But the true sign of a bad patch is that it never feels temporary or fixable. It has a shudder of the inevitable to it. The thought crosses your mind that when love goes it goes all at once, and forever.

Housework hassles go on, are never resolved, and will probably extend into the afterlife ('Why am I the one who takes the clouds to the dry cleaners?').