The only thing that everyone needs to look out for is keeping the students reading through high school and thereafter.

So I should be aware of the dangers of self-consciousness, but at the same time, I’ll be plowing through the fog of all these echoes, plowing through mixed metaphors, noise, and will try to show the core, which is still there, as a core, and is valid, despite the fog. The core is the core is the core. There is always the core, that can’t be articulated. Only caricatured.

Everyone in the life before was cranky, I think, because they just wanted to know. --After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned

I went to Saudi Arabia in 2010, and spent most of my time in Jeddah and the King Abdullah Economic City.

Nothing again. No one is listening. No one is waiting to hear the kicking of a man above. It is unexpected. You have no ears for someone like me.

Then he got more books. He saved all the books.

In hospitals I feel palpable comfort. I feel the competence, the expertise, so much education and money, all of the supplies sterile, everything packaged, sealed tight. My fears evaporate when the automatic doors shush open.