I had had no idea how deep the addiction went—it had essentially replaced me. I was a human being who had structured herself around the narcotic and the prop, who had melded with the narcotic and the prop. Once the narcotic and prop were no longer available, the human being simply died. I was left in a kind of mourning. I was grief stricken. I had murdered someone, and it was me.

- Deborah Eisenberg talking about quitting smoking in an interview for the Spring 2013 issue of The Paris Review; her experience running around the YMCA track during that period became the basis for her first published story

Dennis Severs' House

I became curious about the Dennis Severs House when I was waiting for a train at London's Liverpool Street station, had a few hours to kill, and used a map app to see which nearby museums might absorb my wait. I was intrigued by the weird hours of this place, and the more I read about it, the more intriguing and satisfying it became. 

"You Are Our Television" is a piece I wrote about the house, and more importantly, the owner. Dennis Severs was a Californian who moved to London in the late 1960s to find a place that reflected the refinement he saw on televised costume dramas. When he couldn't find that place, he created it, in an house that he filled with invented history. 

I am delighted to find evidence that Dorothy Sayers was distrustful of "cheese."