The Happiest I Have Ever Been Is

How Can You Come To Understand Your Life When Even The Beginning Is So Complicated: A Single Cell Imprinted With The Color Of Your Eyes And The Shape Of Your Face The Pattern On Your Palm And The Moods That Will Shadow You Through Your Life. How Can You Be Alive When Every Choice You Make Breaks The World Into A Thousand Filaments Each Careless Step Branching Into Long Tributaries Of Alternate Lives Shuddering Outward And Outward Like Sheet Lightning.

I've Always Been A Horror Movie Fan, Since I Was A Kid. And I Was Also A Really Scared Kid. I Was Easily Scared Of The Dark. One Of The Ways I Would Try And Get Away From My Fear Of The Dark Was To Pretend Like The Monsters Were My Friends.

It's Not Like It Ruined My Life, I Was Going To Say, But Then I Didn't. Because It Occurred To Me That Maybe It Had Ruined My Life, In A Kind Of Quiet Way--a Little Lie, Probably Not So Vital, Insidiously Separating Me From Everyone I Loved.

There Is Your Car And The Open Road, The Fabled Lure Of Random Adventure. You Stand At The Verge, And You Could Become Anything.

There Are All Kinds Of Strange Threads In American Culture, And Places Where Sympathy Is Extended And Places Where It Isn't, And Places Where Outrage Is Extended And Places Where It's Not. It's This Constantly Shifting Barrel Of Eels.