I don’t have much of a routine. I go through periods where I work a great deal at all hours of the day whenever I am around a typewriter, and then I go through spells where I don’t do anything. I just sort of have lunch—all day. I never have been able to stick to a schedule. I work when there is something due or when I am really excited about a piece.

—Nora Ephron

It was a death my husband and I wanted to talk about the second we heard the news. He was at work, I was in the minivan, driving the boy home from the park. All day we were jolted by WHAT! WHAT??? moments and separate reflections on favorite movies and books and quotes, plugging in to any handy newsface for information and to absorb the reflections of others, trying to make sense of the shock Death never fails to deliver. Finally, after the boy was in bed and the dishes were loaded in the thing and the coffee grounds that I spilled and which formed a small mountain on the floor were swept up and chlorine was added to the silly above ground pool and we may even have been in pajamas by then, we met in the hallway or the kitchen or possibly it was the living room couch and we let loose. I KNOW, RIGHT? CAN’T BELIEVE IT. WHAT THE…And we shared, passionately, and for probably more than a little while, what we had received from her pioneering movies and books. Thank you, Nora Ephron. I love what you bring out in people, the magic you conjured from your actors, your wise, peering words.