No Time To Spare: Thinking About What Matters

Female solidarity might better be called fluidity—a stream or river rather than a structure.

Question 14: “Are you living your secret desires?” Floored again. I finally didn’t check Yes, Somewhat, or No, but wrote in “I have none, my desires are flagrant.”

Fantasy isn’t meliorative. The happy ending, however enjoyable to the reader, applies to the characters only; this is fiction, not prediction and not prescription.

Let age be age. Let your old relative or old friend be who they are. Denial serves nothing, no one, no purpose.

Saramago didn’t interact directly with his readers (except once). That freedom, also, I’m borrowing from him.

if I wanted to be the center of the universe I’d have a dog.

Fantasy not only asks “What if things didn’t go on just as they do?” but demonstrates what they might be like if they went otherwise—thus gnawing at the very foundation of the belief that things have to be the way they are.

Old age is for anybody who gets there. Warriors get old; sissies get old. In fact it’s likely that more sissies than warriors get old. Old age is for the healthy, the strong, the tough, the intrepid, the

I’ve known clear-headed, clear-hearted people in their nineties. They didn’t think they were young. They knew, with a patient, canny clarity, how old they were.