Annie Hall, no question. It's fucking brilliant. Not that you asked, but I seriously doubt he molested his daughter.

That's what I keep asking myself whenever I see that someone has a PET FOX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AtP7au_Q9w

Give me one now!

No, I'm not going to AWP. I'd like to go sometime, but I'm waiting for someone to assure me that when I get there I will find a mess of cute guys who think I'm really sexy and cool because they like my writing--my writing--and thus fawn over me and make cow eyes and linger and stand too close and generally tempt me to what square people call "cheating" and "immorality" but what great artists call "inspiration."

In other words, I want to be treated like a male writer, then act like one.

C'mon Boob, you can do better than that! Looking and thinking about breasts is not pervy. Taking baths with your mother until you're nineteen is pervy; installing a camera inside a toilet is pervy, but looking at boobs is pretty much part of being human. Girls like them! Babies are obsessed! So feel free to indulge in your interest (please use discretion at work), and while you're at it, try to cultivate some fun perversions that your lady can enjoy too--like shoes, rabbits, swing sets, and Nixon masks.

In the meantime, don't worry too much if every now and then, in a non-work environment, a woman asks you if you're looking at her boobs. Women do this because they're nice. They do it because they're smart and interesting and observant and funny and kind; they do it without judgement, to make you laugh, and because they know that having a nice rack is fun and they want to share the fun. Because everyone likes breasts.

It was in a used bookstore. A friend of mine bought it for his sister and took a picture of the inscription with his cell phone. It was probably about six dollars retail which means he got about three bucks in trade credit for it.

Especially when it's a scream of apology and includes taking me out to dinner and plying me with flattery.

I lived in a series of apartments near Telegraph and Alcatraz, which was as close to campus as I could get. I don't think it was possible to live near the MacArthur Bart then as a lone white girl--I'm not sure, but I think the flats were a lot more sketchy back then. Ashby was a little better. I had to walk to school though, so it was too far away for me. And the parking lot around the Ashby Bart was always extremely creepy, in my opinion. I'm not sure why--it was just a bad-feeling-place.

Sometimes I make resolutions but often I don't remember them. The best have been concrete, like your birthday resolution, which I predict is going to be excellent. It's not too big, it's possible, it's not hard to remember. I might use it myself next year. This year I'm making a resolution I made up for someone else (I give out resolutions, FYI). It is: whenever I feel like telling someone what to do (because I think they need unsolicited help or are so fucking stupid it is driving me crazy) instead of following this impulse I will say, "It's cool."

It's just part of the deal. I buy used books myself, of course--it's the reading-cycle-of-life--and anyway, the more books you sell as an author, the more books end up being resold in used bookstores. So it's a sign of love.

The only time it makes me feel very, very sad and forlorn and bereft is when I find a book for sale that I signed, especially if it's book I gave to a beloved friend I've known for many years who, for instance, took the jacket photo of me on the ACTUAL BOOK FOR SALE. In a case like this, I would be tempted to post the inscribed page here in order to shame him, though that doesn't seem very nice. Probably, he lent the book to someone who later sold it. After all, even if he didn't want to keep it for sentimental reasons, he would probably want to keep it for professional ones. Probably he lost it, and is very, very sad about it himself.

I'm fine with "vagina" as a general term for what I like to refer to as "the region" (while making a wax-on/wax off motion above the lower abdomen). I take it as synecdoche rather than a misuse of language, and as a synecdoche it's a useful term: it includes the hole but is not restricted to it. What appeals to me is how this reflects a characteristic of the region: it can be indeterminate, nebulous, an experience rather than a collection of parts. If I were to say, "My vagina itches," I'd most likely be talking about the passage AND the vulva, but (and if you have a vagina you know this), I probably wouldn't be sure myself of the exact location of the problem; down there, sensation moves, it creeps, it's internal, external, infernal. Maybe it is the vagina itself; maybe there isn't an exact location.

You know, Mrs Hicks, I have no doubt that almost every woman could get specific if need be--for instance in a medical setting--and also more coy and general, for instance in a social setting (where a person might choose between terms like crotch, lady parts, landing strip, vajayjay, Petticoat Junction, tampon tunnel, camel toe, cha cha, front butt, putang, love cave, quiff, pink taco, or pussy, to name a few). Not only do people have different levels of ease when writing or talking about their bodies, they also have different levels of ease using language. Almost every object can be broken down into smaller units, but to use the specialized terms can feel pedantic and contrived. We say leaf rather than blade, petiole, base, midrib, vein, and margin--not because we don't love leaves but because it's easier and has a certain forthright clarity. Our ears and eyes apprehend a familiar word like leaf better than a word like petiole. The same goes for vagina and labia majora; even vulva is kind of an awkward, hulking word. What I'm saying is that some people who may be perfectly comfortable with their bodies may be uncomfortable with Latin.

That said, I want to add that I don't encounter "vagina" used in this general way very often--is it really current and widespread? Maybe I haven't been on the lookout for it. I googled it and the first thing that came up was this charming phrase: The vagina is a self-cleaning organ.

Franky, I don't think of myself as either. I find myself annoyed by classically liberal people, whose views strike me as gloomy, guilt-ridden, and impractical. Conservatives, on the other hand, strike me as intolerant, arrogant, and poisonously nostalgic for something that never existed--a thing pertaining to daddies, I often muse. Are those my only choices?