There are realms of life where the concepts of sense and nonsense do not apply.

Winter broke off, finally, a long ash crumbling at the end of a cigarette, burned out, weak and emptied.

My mother is a big fan of precision, and tries her best to maintain it. Unfortunately, her own incompetence gets in the way. Dinner is served, except when a can won't open. That's the way she is: fine unless something goes wrong and that minor obstacle becomes a huge wall she can't scale. She becomes helpless whenever things don't go smoothly, or exactly as she imagined them.

Live in the moment, just do it - those are phrases thrown around by people who don't know what they mean. Just do it - it's idiotic. You could slap that slogan on a picture of Hitler and it would make as much sense. He did it, all right.

That's the point of it, to have those connections, as painful as they are, as much worry as they might cause; they give back in strength and comfort and joy, believe it or not, and the more connections you make, the happier you are, the more point there is to getting up and getting through the day.

The road makes a noise all its own. It's a single note that stretches in all directions, low and nearly inaudible, only I could hear it loud and persistent.

I hate the calendar, which is both a circle and a straight line, a wheel and an arrow, grinding each anniversary, each day a reminder of my failures, my lost plans, unfulfilled objectives and wishes, the days aren't taken off the calendar, subtracted one by one, but added, another small stone accumulated, another foot moved ahead, the arrow flying forward instead of falling back to earth, when all I want is a complete stop.