n the dark everyone felt the same: the edges blurred. When I think of myself then, what I was like two years ago, I feel like a wound in a bad place, prone to be bumped on corners or edges. Never able to heal.

I write thank-you notes the minute I throw the wrapping paper away.

You know, feeling and action are always linked, one can't exist without the other. It's sort of a hippie thing.

I had this wild thought that he was the only one in all this chaos who was just like me, and that was comforting and profound all at once.

But all the love in the world won't save a sinking ship. You have to either bail or jump overboard.

But she wouldn't. I knew that already. My mother and I had an understanding: we worked together to be as much in control of our shared world as possible. I was suposed to be her other half, carrying my share of the weight. In the last few weeks, I'd tried to shed it, and doing so sent everything off kilter. So of course she would pull me tighter, keeping me in my place, because doing so meant she would always be sure, somehow, of her own.

its been a long night" "aren't they all?