I Get Rational When I Panic.

It Was Like That Class At School Where The Teacher Talks About Realization, About How You Could Realize Something Big In A Commonplace Thing. The Example He Gave--and The Liar Said It Really Happened--was That Once While Drinking Orange Juice, He'd Realized He Would Be Dead Someday. He Wondered If We, His Students, Had Had Similar 'realizations.' Is He Kidding? I Thought. Once I Cashed A Paycheck And I Realized It Wasn't Enough. Once I Had Food Poisoning, And Realized I Was Trapped Inside My Body.

Since His Mother Died I Have Seen Him Steam A Cucumber Thinking It Was Zucchini. That's The Kind Of Thing That Turns My Heart Right Over.

I'm Not First And Foremost Interested In Story And The What-happens, But I'm Interested In Who's Telling It And How They're Telling It And The Effects Of Whatever Happened On The Characters And The People.

The Other Day I Was Playing Scrabble. I Saw That I Could Close The Space In D-e- -y. I Had An N And An F. Which Do You Think I Chose? What Was The Word I Made?

The Worst Of It Is Over Now, And I Can't Say That I Am Glad. Lose That Sense Of Loss—you Have Gone And Lost Something Else. But The Body Moves Toward Health. The Mind, Too, In Steps. One Step At A Time. Ask A Mother Who Has Just Lost A Child, How Many Children Do You Have? "four," She Will Say, "—three," And Years Later, "three," She Will Say, "—four.