College wasn't like the real world. In the real world people dropped names based on their renown. In college, people dropped names based on their obscurity.

One of the reasons that art is important to me is sometimes it actually feels more coherent than life. It orders the chaos.

But I care about the reader, and I'm trying to keep the reader's attention for as long as I can.

It was one of those humid days when the atmosphere gets confused. Sitting on the porch, you could feel it: the air wishing it was water.

Words, words, word. Once, I had the gift. I could make love out of words as a potter makes cups of clay. Love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. For sixpence a line, I could cause a riot in a nunnery. But now -- I have lost my gift. It's as if my quill is broken, as if the organ of my imagination has dried up, as if the proud -illegible word- of my genius has collapsed.

They're just memories now. Time to write them off.

The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season.