So last summer, I was reading a book of short stories that my press was considering for publication. I was the first to get my hands on it, and after pawing through some of it, I recommended it for publication, which is a pretty rare occurrence in the publishing world. My editor took a look at it, and decided that the press would publish it. It will be coming out this spring in the US. And today I was on Le Love, and found that they had quoted the same author, from a cute column he wrote for something called The Morning News.

The column he wrote for had readers write in and pose simple questions to avowed "non-experts", himself included. The question(s) he answered were simply "How do I know if he/she loves me?"

Here are some of the gems. First, the funny:

If you’re Gael Garcia Bernal: She loves you.

If you’re not Gael Garcia Bernal, but you’re willing to sit through a “GGB” marathon and agree for 10 consecutive hours that he is indeed the most beautiful and talented man alive—and so down-to-earth, too!—and afterward agree that his portrayal of Che Guevara would have earned an Oscar nod were it not for the implicit politics, agree that taking Spanish classes is a great idea, or salsa, or tango, whatever, agree, agree, agree, and that night lying in bed after sex that ends with her screaming, “Si! Si!” wonder aloud, “But you’re happy with me, right?”: She loves you, man—no one can compete with that Latin bastard. Forget about it.

And lastly, the beautiful:

In this spirit, sort of, if you read him the following bit from Brian Moore’s great novel, The Luck of Ginger Coffey, and there’s a spark of recognition or even something like exhilaration flickers across his face—he loves you, and he could very well continue to love you for a long, long time. Yes, it’s a test:

Love isn’t an act, it’s a whole life. It’s staying with her now because she needs you; it’s knowing you and she will still care about each other when sex and daydreams, fights and futures—when all that’s on the shelf and done with. Love—why, I’ll tell you what love is: it’s you at seventy-five and her at seventy-one, each of you listening for the other’s step in the next room, each afraid that a sudden silence, a sudden cry, could mean a lifetime’s talk is over.