This is what happens when you go against the grain of truth. You get splinters later on.

I'm grateful for a lot of things. One is not being a drunk wreck. Or losing all four limbs in some ridiculous East Village bus accident that I was so destined for.

No matter your spiritual beliefs, if you hold any, the answer is the same: sometimes, why is not knowable. If you open the refrigerator door and a tub of Kozy Shack tapioca pudding tumbles out and splats open onto the floor, you clean it. You don’t stand there and question why it happened, how it was possible. Why doesn’t matter now.

We were young. We were bored. And the old electroshock therapy machine was just under the stairs in a box next to the Hoover.

And I began to let him go. Hour by hour. Days into months. It was a physical sensation, like letting out the string of a kite. Except that the string was coming from my center.

And in my mind, this settles the issue. I would never drink cologne, and am therefore not an alcoholic.

I remember, no matter how impossible it seemed that any given day would end, it always did. This one would, too.