Yesterday I decided to be lazy and read a Laurie Colwin novel outside instead of hiking, and I’m glad I did: This is exactly how I feel whenever women talk about eye shadow or waxing or what have you.

Their pinkness, their blondness, their carefully streaked hair, nail polish, eyelash curlers, mascara, the heap of things that lay on the dressing table and that Jane Louise never used made her feel they were women in a way that she was not.

(I’m reading A Big Storm Knocked It Over. Jane Louise is my kind of woman.)