People go through periods where they try on different closes like hairstyles. “Norman used to use ‘Cheers,’ and I tried to appropriate it when he died,” the writer and artist Norris Church Mailer said of her husband, Norman Mailer. “It just wasn’t me.” For now, Ms. Mailer is sticking with the lowercase xx — “which are not really kisses but a placeholder, as if I don’t really know how I feel about this person, and they can apply whatever meaning they choose.” But Ms. Mailer did approve of the signoff I was currently trying on, “Be Fabulous.”

“I love that!” she said. “Of course, I’ve lived in Provincetown for the past 35 years.”

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