The ocean is a place of skin, rich outer membranes hiding thick juicy insides, laden with the soup of being.

I've always been creative verbally, had a flair, my teachers said - wrote great expository essays in elementary school, scribbled little poems, embraced all writing assignments. And all along I read voraciously - first in Russian and then, after we left the USSR, in English, and even Spanish.

We often engage the defense mechanism of tunnel vision, just to keep ourselves focused on our daily lives. This makes us terribly jaded in our perception of what is really around us.

Worry is the secret weapon perpetrated upon us by the dark forces of the world that lurk in the shape of fear, uncertainty, confusion, and loss. We, on the other hand, have our own secret weapon against these incorporeal fiends. It is laughter.

In the desert, the only god is a well.

My brand of fantasy is completely devoid of the traditional notions of magic as ritual. Instead I see the fantastic as a meta-layer of existence beyond the real world.

Neither sugar nor salt tastes particularly good by itself. Each is at its best when used to season other things. Love is the same way. Use it to "season" people.