Plenty of people have bad divorces, but few of them end up with cancer, imprisonment, and public scorn. In the dark, rolling, treacherous wake of that sunken ship, the last thing I sought was a "relationship" or, heaven forbid, marriage.

I could have completely lost my mind or became a junkie or abandoned all sense and judgment and committed some rash, stupid act that would have sent me right back into the cage. Instead, I chose to be happy - but not so much for the sake of happiness as for spite.

What's absolutely impossible to prove is the idea of innate and everlasting equality.

You could paper the globe with evidence that there are demonstrable cognitive and physical disparities between what are crudely called human "races." But you could fit all the evidence of innate equality on your pinkie fingernail with room to spare.

A lot of people expend great time and effort explaining why they don't like me, but none of them ever try to explain why their opinion should matter to me. I think most of them sense, but would never be brave enough to admit, their subordinate role in the food chain relative to me.

Anyone who's ever had the misfortune of seeing me interact with house pets knows I have a wickedly strong paternal instinct bordering on the maternal.

What you accomplish in life is limited only by your imagination and the fear of reprisal. Life is too fleeting and unrewarding to have to live with the added anus of indignity. The denial of one's inevitable demise is what causes most of the astringent blandness in the world. When your existence ends most certainly in death, there is no such thing as 'going too far'. There are no 'lines' you should fear to cross except the finish line. Playing it safe is the most dangerous thing you could do.