It turned out I had always been a smoker. I just hadn't had any cigarettes.

Each time my mother went psychotic, I hoped it would be the last time. Afterward she would tell me, 'I think that was the final episode. I think I had a breakthrough.' And I would believe-for a few months-that it was true. That she was back to stay. Maybe it was like having a rock star mother who was always on the road. Were there Benatar children? Did they sit around and wonder if their mom's Hell is for Children tour was going to be her last tour?

Smoking had become my favorite thing in the world to do. It was like having instant comfort, no matter where or when.

With my own memoirs, they are truthful, and I write everything fully expecting to some day end up televised on Court TV, and I'm fully prepared to be challenged legally on it. Everything I write is the truth and I know that I would win.

I loved most when his eyelashes twitched and he blinked, and suddenly happiness was there inside his eyes. Unmistakable. Like a single word printed on a clean white page.

The problem with not having anybody to tell you what to do, I understood, is that there was nobody to tell you what not to do.

After I got my coffee, I leaned against a stop sign and sipped, pretending it was a normal day and I was only up this early so that I could go running and not because I'd just been on a killing spree.