I have people in my life, of course. Some write; some don't. Some read; some don't. Some stare vacantly into space when I talk the geeky talk and walk the geeky walk, but they make killer chocolate chip pancakes and so all is forgiven.

Pick up your clothes. I am not your maid. How do I know this? A maid cannot kill you with a tube sock. I can.

If there is no trust, there is nothing. Trust is all.

Snap judgments? I'd gotten over those about the time I was toilet trained. Swore off diapers and faith in the human experience all in one week.

They don't have to choose either/or. They can have their cake and mutilate it too.

All I cared was that she had never lied. She was honest in a world just the opposite, and a cool oasis in my life. She was who she said she was, and everything Sophia, my mother, the pathologically manipulative liar, had never been.

I raised another shot. "That sound you hear is the heads of moral conservatives spontaneously exploding in the distance.