Like so many Boomers, I saw Lawrence of Arabia in 1962 when it was first released and when we were young teenagers. Im not quite sure why - I really wish some psychologist would explain this - but that movie had a tremendous effect on many of us.

Love is a debt, she thought. When the bill comes, you pay in grief.

Tradition was safety; change was danger.

Watching him with one eye, she wondered if men ever figured out that they were more appealing when they were pursuing their own work than when they were pursuing a woman.

I begin with songs. They provide a sort of skeleton grammar for me to flesh out. Songs of longing for future tense, songs of regret for past tense, and songs of love for present tense.

Dachshunds have their own agenda and can be stubborn about seeing their plans through to completion. What Rosie lacked in consistency, she made up for in enthusiasm. Most of the time when I called her name, she sprinted back, her long ears cocked and flying like a little girl's pigtails. Each encounter was a glorious reunion, even if we'd been parted for only a minute or two. I had never felt so loved.

It would not have suprised Emilio Sandoz that his sex life was discussed with such candor and affectionate concern by his friends. The single craziest thing about being a priest, he'd found, was that celibacy was simultaneously the most private and most public aspect of his life.