The 1st day, I stood in the kitchen leaning against the counter watching Annie feed the cats, and I knew I wanted to do that forever.

And Annie showed me how ailanthus trees grow under subway and sewer gratings, stretching toward the sun, making shelter in the summer, she said, laughing, for the small dragons that live under the streets.

The thing about mountains is that you have to keep on climbing them, and that it's always hard, but there's a view from top every time when you finally get there.

The 1st day, I stood in the kitchen leaning against the counter watching Annie feed the cats, and I knew I wanted to do that forever.

Have you ever felt really close to someone? So close that you can't understand why you and the other person have two separate bodies, two separate skins?

It's Annie and me they're all sitting around here like cardboard people judging; It's Annie and me. And what we did that they think is wrong, when you pare it all down, was fall in love.

But what really is immorality? And what does helping someone really mean? Helping them to be like everyone else, or helping them to be themselves?