Without Privacy There Was No Point In

The More You Pursue Distractions, The Less Effective Any Particular Distraction Is, And So I'd Had To Up Various Dosages, Until, Before I Knew It, I Was Checking My E-mail Every Ten Minutes, And My Plugs Of Tobacco Were Getting Ever Larger, And My Two Drinks A Night Had Worsened To Four, And I'd Achieved Such Deep Mastery Of Computer Solitaire That My Goal Was No Longer To Win A Game But To Win Two Or More Games In A Row--a Kind Of Meta-solitaire Whose Fascination Consisted Not In Playing The Cards But In Surfing The Streaks Of Wins And Losses.

[t]o Love A Specific Person, And To Identify With His Or Her Struggles And Joys As If They Were Your Own, You Have To Surrender Some Of Your Self.

Then She Waited, With Parted Lips And A Saucy Challenge In Her Eyes, To See How Her Presence -- The Drama Of Being Her -- Was Registering. In The Way Of Such Chicks, She Seemed Convinced Of The Originality Of Her Provocation.

But Nothing Disturbs The Feeling Of Specialness Like The Presence Of Other Human Beings Feeling Identically Special.

I Really Enjoy Doing Both, But I Didn't Write Nonfiction Until 1994.