When I Sit Down To Write, I

The Most Compelling Narrative, Expressed In Sentences With Which I Have No Chemical Reaction, Or An Adverse One, Leaves Me Cold.

Somehow, Bad News, However Ridden With Static, However Filled With Echoes, Always Manages To Be Conveyed.

It Didn't Matter That I Wore Clothes From Sears; I Was Still Different. I Looked Different. My Name Was Different. I Wanted To Pull Away From The Things That Marked My Parents As Being Different.

The Urge To Convert Experience Into A Group Of Words That Are In A Grammatical Relation To One Another Is The Most Basic, Ongoing Impulse Of My Life.

But She Has Gathered That Americans, In Spite Of Their Public Declarations Of Affection, In Spite Of Their Miniskirts And Bikinis, In Spite Of Their Hand-holding On The Street And Lying On Top Of Each Other On The Cambridge Common, Prefer Their Privacy.