I was having maybe the worst month of my life when I saw Aliens at the Landmark Sunshine, and I'm pretty sure it was the only thing that saved me.

The details are fairly mundane. I was unemployed; I'd been dumped; I'd decided to deal with all this by hooking up with a stranger, and of course that had gone in the direction of broken condoms and Plan B and hormonal anarchy, probably just because I didn't think anything worse could happen. Right when you think you've hit bottom, sweet Baby Jesus comes and puts a curse on your junk. It had taken serious work, [...]

So, here's another story for you. It's grimmer than the last one, but we tell it almost as often. It goes like this: She's perfect. She's perfect because we made her perfect; because everything about her is entirely within our control. She's your long-lost love, your new and improved wife; she's the girl you never got over, or the girl you could never have. And now, she loves you. She has no choice; loving you is what she's for. Until, one day, she gets too smart. She starts thinking in ways she's not allowed to think. She gets political. And that's the point at [...]

Here's a story for you. It's an old story, and it goes like this: There's a place where we're in charge. You've never seen it. You can't visit. It doesn't exist—it's in the future, or it's in the past, or it's just sideways, outside our borders, somewhere no one has been. But us, the girls, we run everything there. There aren't any men. Or: There were men, but we kicked them out. Or even: There are men, but they answer to us. This place is always threatened. This place is always on the verge of being invaded. This place is always just about to change. [...]