Often, though, the passivity of the woman's role weighs on me, suffocates me. Rather than wait for his pleasure, I would like to take it, to run wild. Is it that which pushes me into lesbianism? It terrifies me. Do women act thus? Does June go to Henry when she wants him? Does she mount him? Does she wait for him? He guides my inexperienced hands. It is like a forest fire, to be with him. New places of my body are aroused and burnt. He is incendiary. I leave him in an unquenchable fever.

If a man does not die of a wound, then it heals in some fashion, and so it is with loss. From the sharp pain of immediate berevement, both the Prince and I passed into the gray days of numb bewilderment and waiting. So grief has always seemed to me, a time of waiting not for the hurt to pass, but to become accustomed to it.

Pets are humanizing. They remind us we have an obligation and responsibility to preserve and nurture and care for all life.

Someone knocks at the door of an apartment to borrow salt or sugar, people run into each other in the elevator, and in this way become inscribed in the spectator's memory.

If you pour oil and vinegar into the same vessel, you would call them not friends but opponents.

I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be okay with being different, and with being this alive, this intense.