I don’t really know if it was the flimsies or the dinner but I’ve often noticed that there is a moment when a man develops enough confidence and ease in a relationship to bore you to death.

I fell in love with Shawn more when he picked up the check for breakfast and insisted that it was all on him. That’s when I fell in love with him, I remember now perfectly.

My sister is small, light, beautiful, with no hips and perfect breasts. I am fifteen pounds overweight, which I can forget sometimes until my sister appears. I am sort of invincible looking and I never display any of those womanly qualities so praised through the ages, like modesty, tact, or sweet vulnerability. My sister, on the other hand, always looks as though her favorite kitten just got run over.

Having quit smoking, I knew what she meant. Unless one is in the exact right mood, it’s impossible. Smoking has been so glamorous for so long, all those matches, those pauses, the lipstick on the tips—the smoke itself curling its casual way through the most nerve-wracking moments. But in another way, smoking, although glamorous, has never been as glamorous as heroin—and dying from cigarettes just doesn’t have the tragic sunset quality that O.D.ing lends to death. Heroin is the celebrated romantic excess of our time.

The Blackboard is a big ordinary room, not too organized, and you don’t have to pay to get in or anything. There’s a stage where a kind of charming-looking band plays country songs, there’s a nice big dance floor, there are tables and chairs, and opposite from the stage running the whole length of the room is a bar. A cop at the door asked for my I.D.—a wonderful moment.

I remember when I first started having lovers, they never failed to remind me that if I didn’t watch out, I’d get really fat (implying that I was painful enough to behold as it was). Then the Beatles came with their Jane Ashers and those Mary Quant clothes that you could only wear if you were ten years old and raised on English cabbage.

David was immediately soothed by Nikki’s adept handling of people just out of the hospital. She had just the right passive quality, unlike me, who went pacing all around looking for a flat mirror and a razor blade.