I have a disturbing problem with losing things. My vulnerability to loss-distress could properly be labeled not only inordinate, but neurotic.

Every writer knows that unless you were born gifted with either supreme confidence or outsize ego, handing in your work holds, in some cases, admitted terror. If that's too strong, at least fairly high anxiety.

I haven't ever found any great writing on that wonderful and often unappreciated art form, the insult.

Does anything show the complexity of the miraculous brain more than that weird curiosity, the sleep-protection dream?

The sudden death at 51 of James Gandolfini is intolerable.

As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it.

It was well after college that I learned about depression. I got my first job for Jack Paar. I realized I was sleeping 14 hours a day and just living for the Paar show.