Everyone's scared. So scared they can't sleep sometimes. Or eat. Or keep their weight on." "Then why bother playing?" I asked. It was a whisper, this question. "Because. You love the game. You love the people you play with. You love winning, maybe. You love that one moment when you get it right . . . I dunno. Why do you play?" "Because," I whispered, "it's who I am." Sounds like a good reason to me.

I hate it when people make fun of me and it turns out they're right.

Sometimes,well,all the time,I can't think of what to say because I'm so dumb and stuff,and then maybe I think of it like five days later.

You can’t think about how much you have left to do because that’s just one thought, one sad thought, that’ll make you bummed out all day long. Instead you’ve got to think about how much you’ve already done.

And I have to tell you, as tough as farming is, the idea of farming when you’re losing money year after year... that’s not life even, that’s like death. That’s eternal damnation.

So what if Brian made me feel like fireworks were going off inside me. He could also make me feel like a big fat clod of heartsick dirt. It was like he could take any emotion I had and make it ten times stronger. Which is great when it's happiness but pretty darn awful if it's anything sad.

It kind of struck me how great it would be to go out with a guy that size. And if you, you know, got tired of dating him, you could always use him as a house or something.