When I was researching my very first novel, "The Basic Eight," I was calling right-wing political and religious organizations and asking them to mail me their material so that I could mock them in my novels.

The file clanked against me, my stupid idea nobody would have gotten had I ever done it. You even wouldn't have gotten it, Ed, I thought, watching her go. It's why we broke up, so here it is. Ed, how could you?

The sad truth is the truth is sad.

So she loved him. She just did immediately and again often and clearly naturally and soundly and obviously and many others.

I have produced things that I would say were sincerely cheerful. But then I am reminded by other people that no one else would see them that way.

It is a miracle if you can find true friends, and it is a miracle if you have enough food to eat, and it is a miracle if you get to spend your days and evenings doing whatever it is you like to do, and the holiday season - like all the other seasons - is a good time not only to tell stories of miracles, but to think about the miracles in your own life, and to be grateful for them, and that's the end of this particular story.

It is one of the peculiar truths of life that people often say things that they know full well are ridiculous.