You could pray all you want that you have a massive stroke while you're working and die, but possibly that won't happen, and you'll be in this bed, and somebody's going to have to clean you up.

As I would soon learn myself, cleaning up what a parent leaves behind stirs up dust, both literal and metaphorical. It dredges up memories. You feel like you're a kid again, poking around in your parents' closet, only this time there's no chance of getting in trouble, so you don't have to be so sure that everything gets put back exactly where it was before you did your poking around. Still, you hope to find something, or maybe you fear finding something, that will completely change your conception of the parent you thought you knew.

I putter. I nurse old grudges. I fold origami while nursing old grudges. I think about the past. I wonder if there’s any grudges I should start.

I just really love the cartoon form. I love the plasticity of it.

You could pray all you want that you have a massive stroke while you're working and die, but possibly that won't happen, and you'll be in this bed, and somebody's going to have to clean you up.

I gave up on ever trying to get 'my way.' I barely knew it existed.

You would open a drawer, which my father had jammed full of newspapers, and the bottom would drop out. There were buttons and screws and nails and bottle caps and jar lids – the drawer of jar lids! Why? Because they're made of metal and maybe there'll be another war and we'll need the metal. A friend of mine – I quote him in the book – says, 'You have found the source of the river eBay.'