Every Successful Artist Comes From A Family

If I Dont Get At Least One E-mail Every Ten Minutes, I Feel Unloved. Even Junk Mail Makes Me Feel Seen. Sad, I Know. Sigh.

The Truth Is, Everything We Know About America, Everything Americans Come To Know About Being American, Isn't From The News. I Live There. We Don't Go Home At The End Of The Day And Think, "well, I Really Know Who I Am Now Because The Wall Street Journal Says That The Stock Exchange Closed At This Many Points." What We Know About How To Be Who We Are Comes From Stories. It Comes From The Novels, The Movies, The Fashion Magazines. It Comes From Popular Culture.

Your Anatomy Is A Mystery That Nobody Bothers Explaining To Us. Even When We Think We Have Mastered One Woman's Body, Every Body Is Different.

The Internet Is Really Our Meeting Place. We Have This Amazing Listserv. Every Time I Log Onto It I Feel A Sense Of Pride, Because If You Log On And Say, "oh I Was Just In San Diego And I Was In A Park And I Saw A Lion," The Flurry Of Replies On Average Is Just Like--wow! All These Existential Questions About What It Means To Be An African, And Never Having Seen A Lion At Home, But Having Seen A Lion Here. Everything You Say Turns Into This Real Philosophical Debate--it's Incredible In So Many Ways. And It's An Invigorating Place To Be.

What I've Come To Learn Is That The World Is Never Saved In Grand Messianic Gestures, But In The Simple Accumulation Of Gentle, Soft, Almost Invisible Acts Of Compassion.