I Read So Ravenously That I Would

Lancaster, California ... That Promised Land Sometimes Called 'the West Coast Of Iowa.

There Was A Level On Which I Believed That What Had Happened Remained Reversible

Tuesday, September 11, 2001, Dawned Temperate And Nearly Cloudless In The Eastern United States.

Once, In A Dry Season, I Wrote In Large Letters Across Two Pages Of A Notebook That Innocence Ends When One Is Stripped Of The Delusion That One Likes Oneself. Although Now, Some Years Later, I Marvel That A Mind On The Outs With Itself Should Have Nonetheless Made Painstaking Record Of Its Every Tremor, I Recall With Embarrassing Clarity The Flavor Of Those Particular Ashes. It Was A Matter Of Misplaced Self-respect.

Another Thing I Need To Do, When I'm Near The End Of The Book, Is Sleep In The Same Room With It...somehow The Book Doesn't Leave You When You're Asleep Right Next To It.