Alex is a beautiful, independent woman with a law degree and an affinity for one night stands. Lee is an insecure OB-GYN who can't seem to get anywhere near women outside of the examining room. When a freak accident lands Lee in a wheelchair, he does his best to get around with his temporary disability. But after Alex almost runs him over and takes him out to apologize, life strangely begins to fall into place for Lee.

Former Spokane Reservation best friends, Seymour and Aristotle had taken different paths before they are brought together for the funeral of an old friend. Both went off to college in Seattle. One is now a successful and openly gay poet; the other returned home embittered. Tensions and resentments flare as they meet again sixteeen years later.

It is during the Cold War and all Americans have a view of Russians as one thing: bad people. A group of American boys discovers a Russian sailor washed up on the coast of Florida and decide to befriend him, assuming that he is friendly and will bring them no danger and thus go against the ideas of their parents, as well as the government.