Time's the thief of memory

The quickest way to learn about a new place is to know what it dreams of.

I stood for almost an hour in a line of shuffling, bitter - eyed late mailers (Christmas is such a carefree, low - pressure time - that's one of the things I love about it).

Did-a-chick? Dum-a-chum? Dad-a-cham? Ded-a-chek?

And then the world exploded.

There is a story in the book Night Shift, called 'The Mangler,' about a laundry machine that takes on a sort of malignant life. I worked in a laundry for about a year and a half after I got out of college. It was the only job I could find to support my wife and our first child. There was a fellow there that had no hands or forearms. He simply had hooks. This is one of the things that they don't tell you about when you become management. You have to wear a tie. It was this fellow's tie that did him in.

I love music, and I can play a little. But anyone can see the difference between someone who's talented and someone that's not.