I want to believe there is a somebody out there for me. I want to believe that I exist to be there for that somebody.

I've always been sort of a closet sci-fi geek.

But I know the difference. Everyone else is a ghost. I exist here alone, stranded by choice. Deserted.

We all just took the bookstore at its word, because if you couldn't trust a bookstore, what could you trust?

I particularly loved the adjective bookish, which I found other people used about as often as ramrod or chum or teetotaler.

Why should I tell you?" he asked, with no small amount of petulance. "If you tell me, I will leave you alone," I said. "And if you don't tell me, I'm going to grab the nearest ghostwritten James Patterson romance novel and I am going to follow you through this store reading it out loud until you relent." Now I could see the fright beneath the defiance.

I deciced if I were ever to get into booze and women, my line would be, 'Excuse me, madam, but I would really love to bed and muss you. . . . Are you perchance free this evening?