I have no idea how to get in touch with anyone anymore. Everyone, it seems, has a home phone, a cell phone, a regular e-mail account, a Facebook account, a Twitter account, and a Web site. Some of them also have a Google Voice number. There are the sentimental few who still have fax machines. – Susan Orlean

I remember, when I was a kid, watching my mother jam herself into her girdle – a piece of equipment so rigid it could stand up on its own – and I remember her coming home from fancy parties and racing upstairs to extricate herself from its cruel iron grip. – Susan Orlean