I try to get centered: Watching white moon face The stars never feel anger Blah, blah, blah, the end

More and more, it feels like I'm doing a really bad impersonation of myself.

I'm not really into comfort books. There are too many of those as it is. Just sort of narcotic books, like my grandmother used to read. They have value like Paxil has value, but there's plenty of them in the world already. There's a shortage of confronting, stimulating, exciting books.

When you're an addict, you can go without feeling anything except drunk or stoned or hungry. Still, when you compare this to other feelings, to sadness, anger, fear, worry, despair, and depression, well, an addiction no longer looks so bad. It looks like a very viable option.

For sure, even the worst blow job is better than, say, sniffing the best rose ... watching the greatest sunset. Hearing children laugh.

What's burning down is a re-creation of a period revival house patterned after a copy of a copy of a copy of a mock Tudor big manor house. It's a hundred generations removed from anything original, but the truth is aren't we all?

How I feel is cheap and used, dirty and humiliated. Dirty and tricked and thrown away.