The truth about your own life is not always easy to accept, and sometimes hasn't even occurred to you.

There's some muscle group around your shoulders that seizes up during the perfection dance and doesn't let go until you are asleep, or alone. Or maybe it never really lets go at all.

These are my words; this is their world, a world in which we can wear our gender on our sleeves, unabashedly, as we go about the business of thinking out loud.

Jason Oliver C. Smith, a big dumb guy who was tan, died March 30 of lung cancer and old age. He was 13 years old and lived in New Jersey, Pennsylvania. At the time of his death, his license was current and he had had all of his shots. He is survived by two adults, three children, a cat named Daisy who drove him nuts, and his lifelong companion, Pudgy, whose spaying he always regretted, as well as a host of fleas who have gone elsewhere, probably to Pudgy. He will be missed by all, except Daisy. He never bit anyone, which is more than you can say for most of us.

Wow, so much of the way I've transacted my life... so much of the results that I'm happy about are because of what Daddy did.

I believe that in a contest between the living and the almost living, the latter must, if necessary, give way to the will of the former.

I do a lot of mental work before I ever start writing.