This is not just a simple story of "money can't buy happiness." Or maybe that's just what it is. And if it is, why shouldn't it be? Because if this is something we are already supposed to know, then why don't we know it? Why do we chase and scrabble and fight for things to flaunt, why? Why do we reach for power over other people, and through the thin superiority of our possessions, believe we have it? Why do we let money make people bigger, and allow those without it to be made smaller? How did we lose the truth in the frantic, tribal drumbeat of more, more, more?

Although I love snow, it messes things up terribly around Seattle, with all of our hills. I worry about my loved ones driving.

Like all kids with divorced parents, I have an abundance of holidays.

Maybe I was being too picky. Maybe I didn't want to be close to anyone. Maybe I'd just be the type who couldn't feel love all the way or something. I couldn't tell what was wrong, but what was wrong was that it just wasn't right.

To an untrained eye, need and love were as easily mistaken for each other as the real master's painting and a forgery.

One of the hardest tasks as a human being is knowing when to keep an open mind, and when not to.

Rejection, though--it could make the loss of someone you weren't even that crazy about feel gut wrenching and world ending.