In all my life I'd never been approached this way, the car pulling up, the Where you going? It was something I wish had happened hundreds of times. I was a looker - someone who looked over at every car at every traffic light, hoping something would happen, and almost never finding anyone looking back - always everyone looking forwards, and every time I felt stupid. Why should people look at you? Why should they care?

At that moment I was sure. That I belonged in my skin. That my organs were mine and my eyes were mine and my ears, which could only hear the silence of this night and my faint breathing, were mine, and I loved them and what they could do.

I'm interested in the human impact of the giant foot of misplaced government. After all, we encounter it every day.

I worked at Salon.com way back when they started, and there's just unmeasurable value to distributing words online, too, but I still get my news from the newspaper in the morning.

WHEN we don't get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don't blame the soldiers.

Having lost people when they were young, you feel intimately acquainted with mortality, I guess. Though I procrastinate worse than anybody.

I need eight hours to get maybe 20 minutes of work done. I had one of those yesterday: seven hours of self-loathing.