Demons are former celebrities who prey on their own insecurities.

The old rule about how a thing of beauty is a joy forever, in my experience, even the most beauteous thing is only a joy for about three hours, tops. After that, she'll want to tell you all about her childhood traumas. Part of meeting these jail girls is it's so sweet to look at your watch and know she'll be behind bars in half an hour.

Years of living in the hope that what you'll get will be better than what you have. Years of looking and feeling worse in the hope that you might look better.

Control the things you can control. As for the rest - God bless it all.

Of all the priceless objects left behind, this is what we rescue. These artifacts. Memory cues. Useless souvenirs. Nothing you could auction. The scars left from happiness.

We all have this moment, when your folks first see you as someone not growing up to be them.

The same architect who designed the Seattle fair's futuristic Science Center, with its lacy Gothic arches and spires, Minoru Yamasaki, was hired to design the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Seattle had promised fairgoers a glimpse of the world that would exist in 2001. That year eventually unfolded as something less than the dream we'd imagined.