I've definitely taken a lot of consolation from animals in my life. There have been times when I've been really sad, and they gave solace and comfort and companionability more than a person.

Everything rational and sensible abandons me when I try to throw out photographs. Time and time again, I hold one over a wastebasket, and then find it impossible to release my fingers and let the picture drop and disappear.

I love writing traditional magazine pieces, and especially their breadth of reporting and the deliberateness of the writing.

I can imagine a future in which real books will exist but in a more limited, particular way.

I love tearing things out of the ground. I love digging and discarding. I love pruning. In fact, I love pruning so much that I once gave myself carpal-tunnel syndrome because I attacked a trumpet vine with so much dedication.

There was a time when I kept track of it all; when my mind worked like a giant lint brush being swept over the fuzzy surface of popular culture. But these days, pop culture seems to have gotten fuzzier and fuzzier; notoriety comes and goes in the snap of a finger.

I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.