He's getting dumped. And he doesn't even know it yet. He's probably eating a cheeseburger or flossing or picking up his dry cleaning, and he has no idea. No inkling.

"I don't know," I said. "What else did you do for your first eighteen years?" "Like I said," he said as I unlocked the car, "I'm not so sure that you should go by my example." "Why not?" "Because I have my regrets," he said. "Also, I'm a guy. And guys do different stuff." "Like ride bikes?" I said. "No," he replied. "Like have food fights. And break stuff. And set off firecrackers on people's front porches. And..." "Girls can't set off firecrackers on people's front porches?" "They can," he said... "But they're smart enough not to. That's the difference."

It all depends on how you choose to live it. It's like forever, always changing.

"Which is completely out-of-line behavior. Then you are wholly within your rights to stomp on their foot." "No," Delia said, over her shoulder. "Actually, you're not. Just excuse yourself as politely as possible, and get out of arm's reach." Kristy looked at me, shaking her head. "Stomp them." she said, under her breath. "Really."

I find that the more I depend on real life, the less interesting the story is. It's much more common for me to take something that almost-happened, or I wish had happened, and then follow that possibility.

After the group vet appointment--during which Lyle scratched the vet, the vet tech, and some poor woman minding her own business in the waiting room--we went back to Sabrina's and re-released the cats to their natural habitat.

You need demarcation." "Demarcation?" I asked. "It means a clear separation between two things," he told me. "A solid end before a clean beginning. No murky borders. Clarity.