I've Got This Theory That Human Beings

I Am Not Good At Noticing When I'm Happy, Except In Retrospect. My Gift, Or Fatal Flaw, Is For Nostalgia. I Have Sometimes Been Accused Of Demanding Perfection, Of Rejecting Heart's Desires As Soon As I Get Close Enough That The Mysterious Impressionistic Gloss Disperses Into Plain Solid Dots, But The Truth Is Less Simplistic Than That. I Know Very Well That Perfection Is Made Up Of Frayed, Off-struck Mundanities. I Suppose You Could Say My Real Weakness Is A Kind Of Long-sightedness: Usually It Is Only At A Distance, And Much Too Late, That I Can See The Pattern.

When You're Too Close To People, When You Spend Too Much Time With Them And Love Them Too Dearly, Sometimes You Can't See Them

... I Stayed Because Running Seemed Too Strange And Too Complicated. All I Knew Was How To Fall Back, Find A Patch Of Solid Ground, And Then Dig My Heels In And Fight To Start Over.

Some People Are Little Chernobyls, Shimmering With Silent, Spreading Poison: Get Anywhere Near Them And Every Breath You Take Will Wreck You From The Inside Out.

That Kind Of Friendship Doesn't Just Materialize At The End Of The Rainbow One Morning In A Soft-focus Hollywood Haze. For It To Last This Long, And At Such Close Quarters, Some Serious Work Had Gone Into It. Ask Any Ice-skater Or Ballet Dancer Or Show Jumper, Anyone Who Lives By Beautiful Moving Things: Nothing Takes As Much Work As Effortlessness.