The human body is mostly blood and mystery and sadness.

It’s when you hide things that you choke on them.

Thanksgiving. It proved you had survived another year with its wars, inflation, unemployment, smog, presidents. It was a grand neurotic gathering of clans: loud drunks, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, screaming children, would-be suicides. And don't forget indigestion. I wasn't different from anyone else: There sat the 18-pound bird on my sink, dead, plucked, totally disemboweled. Iris would roast it for me.

The years have gone by quickly. Death sits in the seat next to me. We make a lovely couple.

The secret is writing down one simple line after another.

Was I the only person who was distracted by this future without a chance?

For each Joan of Arc there is a Hitler perched at the other end of the teeter-totter.