There's no trouble in this world so serious that it can't be cured with a hot bath, a glass of whiskey, and the Book of Common Prayer.

Still it is true that many same-sex couples want nothing more than to join society as fully integrated socially responsible family-centered taxpaying Little League-coaching nation-serving respectably married citizens. So why not welcome them in Why not recruit them by the vanload to sweep in on heroic wings and save the flagging and battered old institution of matrimony from a bunch of apathetic ne'er-do-well heterosexual deadbeats like me

In every possible instance Saint Paul begged Christians to restrain themselves to contain their carnal yearnings to live solitary and sexless lives on earth as it is in heaven. "But if they cannot contain " Paul finally conceded then "let them marry for it is better to marry than to burn." Which is perhaps the most begrudging endorsement of matrimony in human history.

Humor is hard to catch in a second language. Especially when you're as serious a young man as Giovanni. He said to me the other night, 'When you are ironic, I am always behind you. I am slower. It is like you are the lightning and I am the thunder.

Please go to this pizzeria. Order the margherita pizza with double mozzarella. If you do not eat this pizza when you are in Naples, please lie to me and tell me that you did.

Until-as often happened during those first months travel, whenever I would feel such happiness-my guilt alarm went off. I heard my ex-husband's voice speaking disdainfully in my ear: So this is what you gave up everything for? This is why you gutted our entire life together? For a few stalks of asparagus and an Italian newspaper? I replied aloud to him: "First of all," I said, "I'm very sorry, but this isn't your business anymore. And secondly, to answer you question...yes.

Indeed, when I came to Italy, I expected to encounter a certain amount of resentment, but have received instead empathy from most Italians. In any reference to George Bush, people only nod to Berlusconi, saying","We understand how it is - we have one, too.

Then, I will be a real Italian girl, instead of a total American who still can't hear someone across the street to his friend Marco without wanting instinctively to yell back "Polo!

It's good to be sorry - but don't make a fetish of it. The one good thing about being Protestant is that we are not expected to cringe forever in contrition. Yours was a venial sin, Vivian, but not a mortal one.' 'I don't know what that means.' 'I'm not sure I do, either. It's just something I once read. Here is what I do know, however: sins of the flesh will not get you punished in the afterlife. They will only get you punished in this life. As you've now learned.