It's very odd to observe someone else taking your identity into their own hands and getting it all wrong. I don't think most people will ever get to experience how truly weird it is.

My crazy parents and those crazy Catholic nuns didn't do a good job of forcing me to keep the Ten Commandments, but they kept me forever fixated on the very idea of a taboo.

I was exposed to violence while I was still in the womb - my father punched my mother in the stomach while she was pregnant with me.

There were people whom I considered friends or loved ones who either abandoned me or betrayed me in ways I'd never have suspected. But there were others who had been barely acquaintances of mine whose loyalty and efforts on my behalf made me realize that not everyone was as inherently rotten as I'd previously believed. So it caused a violent split in my view of humanity - people turned out to be far worse and far better than I'd ever dreamed possible.

I don't think fatherhood's changed me so much as it's conjured protective instincts I've had all along.

I write to please myself.

Mind you, I live in an area of Atlanta that is nearly 88% black. But in six days in and around Melbourne, I saw maybe three people of African origin and maybe one easily identifiable Australian aborigine.