Even Among The Angels, There Is The

I Scowled At The World. And The World Scowled Back. We Were Locked In A Stare Of Mutual Disgust.

I Smiled Back, The Importance Of Manners, My Mother Always Said, Is Inversely Related To How Inclined One Is To Use Them, Or, In Other Words, Sometimes Politeness Is All That Stands Between Oneself And Madness.

He Learned To Live With The Truth. Not To Accept It, But To Live With It. It Was Like Living With An Elephant. His Room Was Tiny, And Every Morning He Had To Squeeze Around The Truth Just To Get To The Bathroom. To Reach The Armoire To Get A Pair Of Underpants He Had To Crawl Under The Truth, Praying It Wouldn't Choose That Moment To Sit On His Face. At Night, When He Closed His Eyes, He Felt It Looming Above Him.

I Used To Think That If I Had A Choice Between Writing Well And Living Well, I Would Choose The Former. But Now I Think That's Sheer Lunacy. Writing Weighs So Much Less, In The Great Cosmic Equation, Than Living.

Every Year, The Memories I Have Of My Father Become More Faint, Unclear, And Distant. Once They Were Vivid And True, Then They Became Like Photographs, And Now They Are More Like Photographs Of Photographs.