It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens. - Woody Allen

We have to take our possessions and flee. I'm very good at that. I was the men's freestyle fleeing champion two years in a row.

For fifty bucks, I learned, you could "relate without getting close." For a hundred, a girl would lend you her Bartók records, have dinner, and then let you watch while she had an anxiety attack. For one-fifty, you could listen to FM radio with twins. For three bills, you got the works: A thin Jewish brunette would pretend to pick you up at the Museum of Modern Art, let you read her master's, get you involved in a screaming quarrel at Elaine's over Freud's conception of women, and then fake a suicide of your choosing - the perfect evening, for some guys.

If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank.