[Jules] slides into a seat beside me with her hot lunch tray, sighing. “Four hours, thirty-six minutes, and twelve seconds till we’re out of purgatory for the weekend.” “Maybe later,” I murmur, still distracted by the day’s previous event...
I believe having a vision in mind, a goal let's say, is a good thing. Unfortunately, so many of us are blinded by the greatness of our vision that paralysis and inaction sets in. What I try to do is focus on the individual steps, the moments if you w...
I'd always thought that in another world, in another time, if he hadn't been so crazy abusive, Tristan and I could have been a beautiful thing. Our connection could have been the work of art that every other relationship fell short against. I could f...
Forget about showering with my fellow students in Tribeca Alternative’s prison-style showers—one nozzle for four to six girls at a time—in the locker room. It was impossible to work up a sweat during what passed for physical education class at ...
I wish I could say he was a French professor, a French chef, or even a bilingual tutor, but I can’t. He worked in a factory and spent his summer evenings at a reenactment village as a blacksmith or something equally masculine. But it didn’t reall...
No man can roan or inhabit the Canadian North without it affecting him, and the artist, because of his constant habit of awareness and his discipline in expression, is perhaps more understanding of its moods and spirit than others are. He is thus bet...
He was prepared to die for it, as one of Baudelaire's dandies might have been prepared to kill himself in order to preserve himself in the condition of a work of art, for he wanted to make this experience a masterpiece of experience which absolutely ...
Psychoanalysis is often about turning our ghosts into ancestors, even for patients who have not lost loved ones to death. We are often haunted by important relationships from the past that influence us unconsciously in the present. As we work them th...
If Roman Catholic Christianity has always struggled with the threat of works righteousness, Reformed Protestantism has always struggled with the threat of cheap grace. For many, if not the majority of Protestants, God's love and acceptance do not lea...
Sophisticated readers understand that writers work out their anger, their conflicts, their endless grief and rolling list of loss, through their stories. That however mean-spirited or diabolical, it's only a story. That the darkness in the soul is sh...
Just wish it. But remember, it will only work if it's what you most desire. Do it now. We're running out of time." WHAT I MOST DESIRE. WHAT I MOST DESIRE. I looked into his electric eyes and made my wish. Then I popped the bean into my mouth and swal...
While the Roman Empire was overrun by waves not only of Ostrogoths, Vizigoths and even Goths, but also of Vandals (who destroyed works of art) and Huns (who destroyed everything and everybody, including Goths, Ostrogoths, Vizigoths and even Vandals),...
Mr. Passaro, let me teach you about how medicine works.” He starts out. “One of two things is going to happen. Either the Doctors are going to say I told you so, or they are going to say that Jess was the exception. What you believe will determin...
You have made some notes, read some writing books, and done some research. Mostly what you've done is talk about writing a book. An idea for a book is not a book; it is a waste of time. There is no singular thing that makes someone a writer, but ther...
Waaant equity," hisses the alien intruder. "You can't be Pamela Macx," says Pierre, his back to the wall, keeping the sword point before the lobster-woman-thing. "She's in a nunnery in Armenia or something. You pulled that out of Glashwiecz's memorie...
If we are to have a culture as resilient and competent in the face of necessity as it needs to be, then it must somehow involve within itself a ceremonious generosity toward the wilderness of natural force and instinct. The farm must yield a place to...
We are social animals. We need others to survive. With rare exception, this is at the heart of many of our behaviors. We create patterns of behavior that help us to stay connected with others, even when it’s just a bare thread of a connection, or e...
There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever love...
The vision I see in the mirror is me, who I am, supposedly, but that vision does not express the way my mind works or the way I feel inside. A realization creeps over me, the words tumbling into my head quietly like falling leaves. I. Am. Crazy. This...
There is a part of me that no one ever sees. I hide behind a mask of heavy make-up and ever-changing hair and clothing. I try to reinvent myself. It doesn’t work. There are times when I am bone-crushingly sad. I just want to curl into a ball and hi...
If you want to know what happiness is, you need to go to the philosophers. Start with the Wikipedia article “Philosophy of Happiness.” Then go to the Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy, search for “happiness,” and follow through the a...
