Dearest L, This March, as you know, the tip of my finger was ripped off by the bathroom door hinge at the Stonewall Inn. Blood dripped steady like mercury from a shattered glass thermometer. I laughed in shocked irony, then cried out in drunken agony. My friends hailed a cab and, as politely as they could given the panic overriding their inebriation, stated our need for the nearest emergency room. The taxi, now a makeshift ambulance, zipped in and out of traffic as legally as it could. Upon...