In an unpredictable and unpleasant world it was both unusual and very pleasant to hear what I wanted to hear.

I knew it, I just knew it! The person who had the job of writing my life's dialogue used to work on a very low budget soap opera.

The old Chinese proverb springs to mind - No pain, no gain.

So I'm back again to the eternal question, the one that has plagued me all my life: How Do Other People Do It? How come they were given life's rule book and I missed out? Where was I when God was dispensing capability and cop on? Looking at shoes, probably.

I like hoodies. They just make me feel safe.

The best anyone can do is breathe in, breathe out and wait for it to pass.

I'm trying..." How could I put it? "I'm trying to get far enough down the line so that I can remember." I stopped, then continued: "so that I can remember without the pain killing me" And the days were stacking up. And weeks. And months. It was now almost the middle of June and he'd died in February, but I still felt like I'd just woken from a horrible dream, that I was suspended in that stunned, paralyzed state between sleep and reality where I was grasping for, but couldn't get a handle on normality.