The only thing that makes one an artist is making art. And that requires the precise opposite of hanging out; a deeply lonely and unglamorous task of tolerating oneself long enough to push something out.

Just think, the shoes I wouldn’t be caught dead in might actually turn out to be the shoes I am caught dead in.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you know that you're being visited by your own future? They come so rarely and with little fanfare, those moments. They're not particularly photogenic. There's no breach in the clouds to reveal the shining city on a hill. No folk dancing children outside your bus, no production values to speak of- just a glimpse of such quotidian, incontrovertible truth that after the initial shock at the supreme weirdness of it all, a kind of calm sets in. So this is to be my life.

I find life itself provides ample and sufficient tests of my valor and mettle: illness; betrayal; fruitless searches for love; working for the abusive, the insane, and the despotic. All challenges easily as thrilling to me as scrambling over icy rock in a pair of barely adequate boots.

I had a tumor. But it was great.

Being a stranger was like being dead, and brought to mind how, in a book he had read that most folks misunderstood one common state: The flip side of love is indifference, not hate.

Is there some lesson on how to be friends? I think what it means is that central to living a life that is good is a life that's forgiving. We're creatures of contact regardless of whether we kiss or we wound. Still, we must come together. Though it may spell destruction, we still ask for more-- since it beats staying dry but so lonely on shore. So we make ourselves open while knowing full well it's essentially saying "please, come pierce my shell.