Ask yourself: What did I eat for breakfast today? What did I eat for dinner last night? You see how fast reality fades away?

In a city this size, every year, hundreds of husbands walk away. Kids leave home. Wives escape. People disappear.

Our generation has had no Great Depression, no Great War. Our war is spiritual. Our depression is our lives.

As a child of the 1970s, I couldn't hold a narrative in my head; I was lucky if I could hold a joke in my head, because every time you turn on television or radio, it wipes the slate clean - at least in my case. After I gave up television, I found I could carry longer and longer stories or ideas in my head and put them together until I was carrying an entire short story. That's pretty much when I started writing.

I told him to buy land, my mum says, they’re not making it anymore.

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

In good old Colonial Dunsboro, masochism is a valuable job skill. It is in most jobs.