I let it ring. I wanted to breathe for a few minutes, and I could think of nothing that couldn't wait. Besides, I had paid almost $50 for an answering machine. Let it earn its keep.

Why bother inflicting enormous pain on yourself when sooner or later Life would certainly get around to doing it for you?

It revealed a cruelty that really made one wonder if the universe was such a good idea after all.

Anybody can be charming if they don't mind faking it, saying all the stupid, obvious, nauseating things that a conscience keeps most people from saying. Happily, I don't have a conscience. I say them.

Life teaches us that human thought almost never walks hand in hand with logic, and it is usually counterproductive to raise the point.

But as I have noticed on more than one occaision, life itself is unfair, and there is no complaint department, so we might as well accept things the way they happen, clean up the mess, and move on.

Mutilated corpses with a chance of afternoon showers. I got dressed and went to work.