No matter what I've written, someone somewhere has come up to me and said, "Me too." The truth can be offensive, but it's always nourishing, in a way. You recognize it. You can feel it. And even if [readers] think, "My god, I would never get in those situations," within those ridiculous circumstances that I have created for myself, they know the way I respond is probably what they would do too.

I did not consider him to be any kind of a genius. I considered him deeply lacking in the area that mattered most in life. Star quality.

I hate feelings. Why does sobriety have to come with feelings?

But my favorite band is Curbside Life, out of Chicago.

I gazed around the room and my eyes stopped dead on a little boy standing in the corner. This was a particularly eerie doll. Life-sized and blond-haired and blue-eyed. I saw a little Nazi boy, pockets probably stuffed with scissors and retractable blades. My grandfather on my mother's side was rumored to be half Jewish, which practically makes me Jerry Seinfeld's brother, and thus wary of blond German boys with their hands out of sight.

You deserve to need me, not to have me.

Our lives are one endless stretch of misery punctuated by processed fast foods and the occasional crisis or amusing curiosity.