The Only Time The Word Baby Doesn't

Just Because You Have Stopped Sinking Doesn't Mean You're Not Still Underwater.

Sometimes I Can Better Describe A Person By Another Person's Reaction. In A Story In My First Book, I Couldn't Think Of A Way To Sufficiently Describe The Charisma Of A Certain Boy, So The Narrator Says, "i Knew Girls Who Saved His Gum."

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.

I Have Written Letters That Are Failures, But I Have Written Few, I Think, That Are Lies. Trying To Reach A Person Means Asking The Same Question Over And Over Again: Is This The Truth, Or Not? I Begin This Letter To You, Then, In The Western Tradition. If I Understand It, The Western Tradition Is: Put Your Cards On The Table.

As Soon As I Knew That I Would Be All Right, I Was Sure That I Was Dead And Didn't Know It. I Moved Through The Days Like A Severed Head That Finishes A Sentence. I Waited For The Moment That Would Snap Me Out Of My Seeming Life.