This is part II of this post. Some more excerpts from “Heartburn” – what Rachel Samstat thinks about stuff :

Describing her husband Mark – He has a black beard , but the part of it that’s on the left side of his chin has a little white stripe in it, where the skin underneath has no pigment. Just like a skunk is what you’re thinking, and you’re right, but it can look very odd and interesting

On finding good men – You think I’m just standing there, and this army of men is walking by, shouting, ’Choose me, choose me’, and I always pick the turkey. Life’s not like that. I can’t even find a man who lives in the same city I do.

On recipes with potatoes – Not just any potato will do when it comes to love.

On trying again – Maybe he’s come to his senses. Maybe he’s remembered he loves me. Maybe he’s full of remorse. There was a police car parked in front of the house. Maybe he’s dead, I thought. That wouldn’t solve everything, but it would solve a few things. He wasn’t, of course. They never are. When you want them to die, they never do.

On marriages – We were on our second marriages; we had got the kinks out of the machinery; we would bring up our children in a poppy field of love and financial solvency and adequate household help. There would be guns for our daughters and dolls for our sons.

On parenting – All those idiotically lyrical articles about child-rearing duties never mention that, nor do they allude to something else that happens when a baby is born, which is that all the power struggles of the marriage have a new playing field. The baby wakes up in the middle of the night, and instead of jumping out of bed, you lie there thinking: whose turn is it? If it’s your turn, you have to get up; if it’s his turn, then why is he still lying there asleep while you’re awake wondering whose turn it is ?

On throwing pies – If I throw this pie at him, he will never love me. But he doesn’t love me anyway. So I can throw the pie if I want to. I picked up the pie, thanked God for the linoleum floor, and threw it.