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.

Why is it always the world? Why is it never just half a block? Or Jersey? You know, something we could live without?

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

Memories - you can't escape them, but you can't let them rule you either.

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.

What're you still doing up? You know all good little ninjas should be in bed, visions of homicidal sugarplums dancing in their heads.

As I stood, I took in a last breath of spring-scented air, listened to the birdsong, and then saw a member of wildlife the conservationists hadn't planned on reviving in this place. A perv in a white shirt and polyester pants. A standard hide-in-the-bushes-and-whack-it perv. Fat and balding, it was as appealing as watching a giant marshmallow go at it.