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You Can Make Almost Anything A Learning Or Positive Experience. I Think I Offer A Good Example Of How To Make The Most Out Of What Life Gives You And How To Keep Moving On.

-Augusten Burroughs

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You Can Make Almost

Augusten Burroughs

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You Can Make Almost Anything A Learning Or Positive Experience. I Think I Offer A Good Example Of How To Make The Most Out Of What Life Gives You And How To Keep Moving On.

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And I Hope She Does Not Live In A Dark World. Because Even The Most Terrible Loss Doesn't Have To Make You Darker; It Can Make You Deeper.

As I Sat In The Hot, Salty Water, I Thought, 'no Wonder Mr. Bubble Always Gives Me A Urinary Tract Infection And Hives.' Mr. Bubble Was For Common People. Mr. Bubble Was For My So-called Brother, Their True Child. I Was A Vanderbilt. I Should Bathe In Condiments And Seasonings.

I Told Myself, 'all I Want Is A Normal Life'. But Was That True? I Wasn't So Sure. Because There Was A Part Of Me That Enjoyed Hating School, And The Drama Of Not Going, The Potential Consequences Whatever They Were. I Was Intrigued By The Unknown. I Was Even Slightly Thrilled That My Mother Was Such A Mess. Had I Become Addicted To Crisis? I Traced My Finger Along The Windowsill. 'want Something Normal, Want Something Normal, Want Something Normal', I Told Myself.

As A Child, I Was Never Drawn Toward Depraved Or Extreme Situations; I Really Wanted A Normal Little Childhood. Unfortunately, That's Just Not What Happened.

Stars Should Not Be Seen Alone. That's Why There Are So Many. Two People Should Stand Together And Look At Them. One Person Alone Will Surely Miss The Good Ones.

Maybe You Feel Pressure To Be Positive Because So Many People Rely On Your Good, Fake-positive Energy? If That's The Case, Screw Everybody Else. You're Not A Bottle Of Valium.

Positive Energy

You Would Be Amazed By What You Can Give Up, Lose, Or Break, And Yet Still Be A Person Who Gets Happy Over Brownies.

He's A Really Nice Guy, If Only I Weren't Me.

I'm Not Going To Waste My Energy Looking Into The Eyes Of Someone Like The Guy Who Blew My Legs Off Trying To Find A Way To Forgive Him For Doing Something That Horrible When There Are Way More Productive Ways I Could Be Spending My Life. You've Got To Focus On Moving On.

I Don't Think Writers - In General - Ever Achieve The Fame Of Movie Stars. For The Simple Reason That Only A Fraction Of The Population Reads. But I Guess There Are Exceptions.

But My Favorite Band Is Curbside Life, Out Of Chicago.

I Was Learning That If I Lived Slightly In The Future-what Will Happen Next-i Didn't Have To Feel So Much About What Was Going On In The Present.

The Most Mortifying Fact Of My Life Is Something That Happened When I Was Fourteen And I Have Never Admitted To Anyone: Not To Friends Nor Therapists; Not Even In Rehab When We Were Detailing Our Own Personal Spirals Of Shame Did I Confess. It Is This: I Am A Graduate Of The Barbizon School Of Modeling.

My Mother Is From Cairo, Georgia. This Makes Everything She Says Sound Like It Went Through A Curling Iron.

It Terrified Me To Consider: What If, As A Grown-up, I Craved Another Body Beside Me As Still As This One? What Then?

Sometimes When You Work In Advertising You'll Get A Product That's Really Garbage And You Have To Make It Seem Fantastic, Something That Is Essential To The Continued Quality Of Life.

You Cannot Be A Prisoner Of Your Past Against Your Will. Because You Can Only Live In The Past Inside Your Mind.

You Must Never Allow Something That Happened To You To Become A Morbidly Treasured Heirloom That You Carry, Show People, Put Back In Its Black Velvet Pouch And Then Tuck Back Into Your Jacket Where You Can Keep It Close To Your Heart.

His Laugh Is Made If Porch Swings And Lemonade

I Really Look At My Childhood As Being One Giant Rusty Tuna Can That I Continue To Recycle In Many Different Shapes.

I Read A Lot Of Science Books - I Love Cosmology, Quantum Theory, Particle Physics. So My Idea Of A Great Read Would Probably Put You Directly Into A Coma.

And I Began To Let Him Go. Hour By Hour. Days Into Months. It Was A Physical Sensation, Like Letting Out The String Of A Kite. Except That The String Was Coming From My Center.

Smoking Had Become My Favorite Thing In The World To Do. It Was Like Having Instant Comfort, No Matter Where Or When.

I Never Listen To Music When I Write.

Listening To Music

Maybe It Was A Patty Hearst Thing. Stockholm Syndrome Or Whatever It's Called When You're Being Held Against Your Will But Then You Become Sucked In And Fall In Love. Or If Not Exactly Love, You Fall Into Something You Can't See Out Of. 'i Can't Shoot A Machine Gun' Becomes 'hey, This Hardly Has Any Kick-back!

Falling In Love

Confidence Is A Reduction Of Your Own Interest In Whether Others Are Thinking About You And If So, What They're Thinking.

Thinking About You

I've Learned How To Turn The Adversities In My Life Into Enriching Experiences. You Can Actually Gain A Lot From Adversities And They Make You The Person You Are Today.

Truthfulness Itself Is Almost Medication, Even When It’s Served Without Advice Or Insight.

I Remember, No Matter How Impossible It Seemed That Any Given Day Would End, It Always Did. This One Would, Too.

Imperfections Are Attractive When Their Owners Are Happy With Them.

Should I Just Sit Down, Right Here At Carousel Seven, And Shake Until Somebody's Arms Are Around Me And They're Saying, 'it's Okay, I'm Here, I'm Here, Come With Me To The Institute.

Throwing Things Horrified Me. I Suffered Extreme, Paralyzing Anxiety When It Came To Anything Remotely Athletic. I Wouldn't Even Run To Catch The School Bus Because I Knew I'd Trip And Then Get Teased For A Year.

The Dark Side Of Blogging Is, Of Course, People Can Be (and Are) Just Savage And Uncivilized, Deeply Cruel And Fully Unaccountable.

I Suppose Home Is, For Me, More Of A State Of Mind. It's Really More Of About Being Where I Want To Be With People I Care About.

Do Not Wait For The Healing To Arrive. It Will Never Come. The Holes Will Never Leave Or Be Filled With Anything At All. But Holes Are Interesting Things.

To Me, These People Were As Exotic As Animals In A Zoo. I'd Never Seen Anything Like Them. I Wasn't Sure Whether I Wanted To Be One Of Them Or Simply Live Among Them Taking Notes And Photographs.

I Never Question The Way I Write. Writing Is The Only Thing That's Without Seams For Me. It's An Effort To Talk Because My Pictures Have To Be Turned Into These Sounds. It's An Effort To Be Alive. It's Work. But Writing Is Wonderful.

This Is How You Survive The Unsurvivable, This Is How You Lose That Which You Cannot Bear To Lose, This Is How You Reinvent Yourself, Overcome Your Abusers, Fulfill Your Ambitions And Meet The Love Of Your Life: By Following What Is True, No Matter Where It Leads You.

I Couldn't Help But Think, This Car Is Taking Me To A Mental Hospital And My Mother Is Treating It Like Open-mic Night At A Greenwich Village Café.

The Most Valuable Moments And Experiences That Life Has To Offer Are Found Only Along Its Most Treacherous Paths.

Thanksgiving Was Nothing More Than A Pilgrim-created Obstacle In The Way Of Christmas; A Dead Bird In The Street That Forced A Brief Detour.

This Is What Happens When You Go Against The Grain Of Truth. You Get Splinters Later On.

A Lot Of Being A Writer Doesn't Have Anything To Do With Writing. It's Ironic - I Have To Squeeze The Books In, Even Though That's What It's All About.

After Was Better. Before Was Only There So After Could Happen.

Tracy, The Leader Of The Cdh Group, Looks At Me With Eyes That Seem To Belong To Someone Three Times Her Age. It's Something Beyond Wisdom, All The Way To Insanity And Back. It's Like Her Eyes Are Scarred From All The Things She's Seen.

In Order For Us [people] To Progress, We Need Brilliance And Brilliance Isn't Fair And It's Not Polite And We Can't Grow It. It Happens. Genius Happens And It Doesn't Always Happen In A Zip Code Where We Can Access It. Therefore, We Kind Of Need [internet] Not To Keep Tabs On Everybody But We Need To Give Them Access To Everybody Else.

I Always Tried To Learn Greek, But All I Got Out Of It Was, "poulaki Mou." ["my Little Chicken."]

Most Of Us Have Love In Our Lives. Most Of Us Love Other People Are Are Ourselves Loved By Others. But Make No Mistake: You Are Alone In The World. You Were Born Alone, Even If You Were Born Conjoined. And You Die Alone, Unable To Bring A Single Person With You.

Are You One Of Those People Who Says On A First Date, 'i'm Really Not In A Hurry To Meet Somebody, I Figure If It Happens, It Happens'? Because Those Are The Most Desperate People Of All. I'm Just Saying This So That If You Are This Person, You Aren't Hiding It From Anybody. There Is No Shame In Being Hungry For Another Person. There Is No Shame In Wanting Very Much To Share Your Life With Somebody.

You Have An Incredible Body." He Reaches Out To Touch My Stomach. I Feel No Pleasure In His Compliment Or His Touch, Only Impatience. This Is The Only Feeling. I Feel Like The Paper On Which My Mood Chart Is Printed.

Although I Was Able To Maintain A Pleasant Expression, I Was Mentally Throwing Up In Her Face.

I Think People Might Think, Oh, I Don't Want To Approach The Big Famous Author Because It's Embarrassing, But Then They Think For Two Seconds About It And Realize, This Is, Like, A Toilet Bowl Reader.

I Think Part Of The Reason I'm Attracted To Foster Is Because He's Such A Mess. I Mean, The People I Have Loved In My Life Have Never Been Easy To Love. I'm Not Used To Normal. I'm Used To Disaster. I Don't Know, As Messed Up As He Is, He's Also Sort Of Exciting, Sort Of A Challenge. I'm Accustomed To Working For Love.

Because Here Is The Truth: If You Want To Have A Chance At Meeting Somebody With Whom You Are Genuinely Compatible, Never Put Your Best Foot Forward.

I Knew That If I Wrote A New Book Every Six Months Or Every Year, If I Continued To Read Great Books, Eventually I Would Write Something Worthy Of Publication. I Understood I Might Be In My Forties Or My Fifties Or Even My Sixties, But I Felt Confident That It Would Happen.

All Children Should Be Loved, Protected, Nurtured --emotionally And Intellectually-- Respected, And Never, Under Any Circumstances, Underestimated.

After I Got My Coffee, I Leaned Against A Stop Sign And Sipped, Pretending It Was A Normal Day And I Was Only Up This Early So That I Could Go Running And Not Because I'd Just Been On A Killing Spree.

Once I Decided To Write, To Be Published, I Knew It Would Happen.

I Tend To Really Enjoy Being Swept Up In Fiction. I Love A Good Story And I Admire Fiction Authors.

But Then, Look At Me. My Brain Is Incorrectly Formed, And I'm Shaped Like A Tube. Plus, I'm An Alcoholic, A "survivor" Of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Was Raised In A Cult And Have No Education. So, Really, If You Think About It, The Only Thing That Separates Me From The Guy With The Stinky Foot And No Teeth Is A Book Deal And Some Cologne.

Reading Takes Solitude And It Takes Focus.

No Matter Your Spiritual Beliefs, If You Hold Any, The Answer Is The Same: Sometimes, Why Is Not Knowable. If You Open The Refrigerator Door And A Tub Of Kozy Shack Tapioca Pudding Tumbles Out And Splats Open Onto The Floor, You Clean It. You Don’t Stand There And Question Why It Happened, How It Was Possible. Why Doesn’t Matter Now.

If You Believe Suicide Will Bring You Peace, Or At The Very Least Just An End To Everything You Hate- You Are Displaying Self-caring Behavior. You Are Still Able To Actively Seek Solutions To Your Problems. You Are Willing To Go To Great Lengths To Provide What You Believe Will Be Soothing To Yourself. This Strikes Me As Optimistic.

Our Lives Are One Endless Stretch Of Misery Punctuated By Processed Fast Foods And The Occasional Crisis Or Amusing Curiosity.

Like Cubic Zirconia, I Only Look Real. I'm An Imposter. The Fact Is, I Am Not Like Other People.

Red Hair Is Great. It's Rare, And Therefore Superior.

I Never Get Sick Of Writing My Own Stories Because There's A Certain Comfort In Knowing You Will Never Run Out Of Material. It's Relaxing, Actually, To Write.

I Feel Like They Are Two Different Things, And When I Write Books, They're Just Books. If They Can Be Movies That's Okay. But I Would Write A Novel That Couldn't Be A Film.

I Used To Feel So Alone In The City. All Those Gazillions Of People And Then Me, On The Outside. Because How Do You Meet A New Person? I Was Very Stunned By This For Many Years. And Then I Realized, You Just Say, "hi." They May Ignore You. Or You May Marry Them. And That Possibility Is Worth That One Word.

In The Same Way That A Tornado Rips The Roof Off A Double-wide Trailer, Leaving The Occupants Dazed And Staring At The Clouds From The Splinters Of What Used To Be Their Living Room, It Was Over.

It’s A Wonder I’m Even Alive. Sometimes I Think That. I Think That I Can’t Believe I Haven’t Killed Myself. But There’s Something In Me That Just Keeps Going On. I Think It Has Something To Do With Tomorrow, That There Is Always One, And That Everything Can Change When It Comes.

My Thoughts Seem Thick, Ketchup Stuck In A Bottle. Like Trying To Feel Someone's Face While Wearing Goosedown Mittens.

I Think I Love Him, But I Also Think That You Can Love People Who Aren't Good For You.

I Knew That He Was As Reliable As A Mathematical Formula.

There's Not Enough Of Me Left Over.

I Understood At Once, I Am Not Living, But Actively Dying. I Am Smoking, Living Unhealthily. I’m Shutting Down. I Need To Go The Other Way, Inside. And It Was So Clear To Me What I Was Doing. It Was Suddenly Perfectly Clear. I Understood, I Need To Write. Live Here, In My Words, And My Head. I Need To Go Inside, That’s All. No Big, Complicated, Difficult Thing. I Just Need To Go In Reverse. And Not Worry About What To Write About, But Just Write. Or, If I’m Going To Worry About What To Write, Then Do This Worrying On Paper, So At Least I’m Writing And Will Have A Record Of The Anxiety.

Life Would Be Fabric-softener, Tuna-salad-on-white, Pta-meeting Normal.

Before I'm A Writer, I'm Definitely A Reader And When I Read Memoir, I Really Want It To Be True.

But She Did Love Him. I Believe It. I Know Exactly How That Is. To Love Somebody Who Doesn't Deserve It. Because They Are All You Have. Because Any Attention Is Better Than No Attention.

We Were Young. We Were Bored. And The Old Electroshock Therapy Machine Was Just Under The Stairs In A Box Next To The Hoover.

All Of Us Are Richer And More Fascinating And More Complex Than We Can Ever Know.

In Some Ways, Blogging Is Like Drinking - It Gives A Person Permission To Be A Total Asshole.

You Manufacture Beauty With Your Mind

You Need To Grab Your Dream Out Of The Sky Like It's A Kite And Pinch The String Through Your Fingers Until You Reach The Spool.

I Myself Am Made Entirely Of Flaws, Stitched Together With Good Intentions.

I Missed Him So Much That I Had Physical Sensations Of Loss, All Over My Body. Like One Minute I Was Missing An Arm, The Next My Spleen. It Was Making Me Feel Sick, Like Throwing Up.

I Love You," She Said, And I Knew She Meant It Because She Spoke The Words From The Heart At The Center Of Her Chest. This, At Least, Had Not Been Left Behind At The Hospital.

I Once Read About A Guy Who Lost His Arms In A Fire. The Nurse Took Pity On Him And Gave Him A Hand Job. I Don't Even Get That.

Freshly Brainwashed From Rehab, I Carry The Bottle Into The Bathroom. I Hold It Up To The Light. See The Pretty Bottle? Isn't It Beautiful? Yes, It's Beautiful. I Unscrew The Cap And Pour It Into The Toilet. I Flush Twice. And Then I Think, Why Did I Flush Twice? The Answer, Is Of Course, Because I Truly Do Know Myself. I Cannot Be Sure I Won't Attempt To Drink From The Toilet, Like A Dog.

The Most Important Thing For A Writer To Do Is To Write. It Really Doesn't Matter What You Write As Long As You Are Able To Write Fluidly, Very Quickly, Very Effortlessly. It Needs To Become Not Second Nature But Really First Nature To You. And Read; You Need To Read And You Need To Read Excellent Books And Then Some Bad Books. Not As Many Bad Books, But Some Bad Books, So That You Can See What Both Look Like And Why Both Are What They Are.

I Was Struck With A Bolt Of Distilled Horror Like I Have Never Known Before. Far Worse Than Suddenly Finding Yourself Walking Through A Prison Cafeteria Wearing Daisy Duke Shorts And A Jane Fonda Headband.

Finding Yourself

Just As I Had Long Suspected, A Person Didn't Really Need Math For Anything Anyway. Maybe Some People Did. Some Limited People.

The Secret To Being A Writer Is That You Have To Write. It's Not Enough To Think About Writing Or To Study Literature Or Plan A Future Life As An Author. You Really Have To Lock Yourself Away, Alone, And Get To Work.

As A Young Child I Had Santa And Jesus All Mixed Up. I Could Identify Coke Or Pepsi With Just One Sip, But I Could Not Tell You For Sure Why They Strapped Santa To A Cross. Had He Missed A House? Had A Good Little Girl Somewhere In The World Not Received The Doll He'd Promised Her, Making The Father Angry?

I Think That The Internet Is Our Most Profound And Beautiful Achievement. It Is Magnificent. We Have The Internet As A Layer Of Our Thinking That Doesn't Control Us, We Control It, Yet We Don't Have To Be Aware Of It. It Will Be Like A Suit That Really Fits Well.

It Turned Out I Had Always Been A Smoker. I Just Hadn't Had Any Cigarettes.

I Sit There And Think How It Isn't Fair That I Can't Drink At All, Even A Little. I Realize I Have Crammed An Entire Lifetime Of Moderate Drinking Into A Decade Of Hard-core Drinking And That Is Why. I Blew My Wad.

And Of Course, The Answer Came To Me In The Same Way Jesus Comes To Those Who Drink In Trailers: As An Epiphany.

But Feelings, No Matter How Strong Or “ugly,” Are Not A Part Of Who You Are. They Are The Radio Stations Your Mind Listens To If You Don’t Give It Something Better To Do. Feelings Are Fluid And Dynamic; They Change Frequently. Feelings Are Something You Have, Not Something You Are. Like Physical Beauty, A Cold Sore, Or An Opinion. Admitting You Feel Rage Or Terrible Pain Or Regret Or Some Old, Rotten Blame Does Not Mean These Feelings Are Part Of Who You Are As A Person. What These Feelings Mean Is, You Have To Change Your Thinking To Be Free Of Them.

I Don't Worry About Anything In The Internet Age. I Have Been Online Since I Was Aware Of It: 1985 In San Francisco. It Has Changed Everything In My Life. I Would Not Want To Even Be Alive In An Era That Did Not Have It Because It Is Essential To Our Evolution As A Species.

If I Were Blind I'd Rather Have Another Blind Person Leading Me Around Because They Know What I'm Dealing With And They're Experiencing The Same Things.

The Schnauzer Listens To Jazz. I Listen To Jazz Because He Likes It, And I Have Even Gone To Jazz Concerts With Him, But Truthfully I Would Rather Listen To Retarded Children Pounding On Pan Lids With Wooden Spoons.

Part Of Me Believes That Love Is More Valuable When You Have To Work For It.

You Are Allowed To Be Alive. You Are Allowed To Be Somebody Different. You Are Allowed To Not Say Goodbye To Anybody Or Explain A Single Thing To Anyone, Ever.

We Haven't Slept Together. But We've Napped

I Realized I Could Really Become Hooked On These Happy Pills. They Gave Me A Glorious Feeling Of General Well-being And Didn't Make Me Fat, Like Alcohol. I Wondered If There Was Any Harm In Being Addicted To Only These.

People Generally Like Happy Endings, Which Is Something I Learned From My Years In Advertising. I Like Happy Endings Myself, But Only If They're Honest. I'm Just As Happy With A Terrible, Hopeless Ending.

Your Mind Is Like An Unsafe Neighborhood; Don't Go There Alone.

My Mistake Was In Underestimating The Emotional Force Of A Song You Have Already Hear A Thousand Times.

There Is No Shame In Being Hungry For Another Person. There Is No Shame In Wanting Very Much To Share Your Life With Somebody.

I Felt Deeply Tricked. Stunned. And Furious. I Also Felt My Default Emotion: Numbness.

I'm Grateful For A Lot Of Things. One Is Not Being A Drunk Wreck. Or Losing All Four Limbs In Some Ridiculous East Village Bus Accident That I Was So Destined For.

New York City Is A Place Where You Can Lock Yourself Up In Your Little Studio Apartment, And Not Go Outside At All, And Not Feel In The Slightest Guilty About It.

My Only Ritual Is To Just Sit Down And Write, Write Every Day.

Long Marriages Have Ended In Ruin Over Tiny And Insignificant Grievances That Were Never Properly Aired And Instead Grew Into A Brittle Barnacle Of Hatred.

I Am Prone To Envy. It Is One Of My Three Default Emotions, The Others Being Greed And Rage. I Have Also Experienced Compassion And Generosity, But Only Fleetingly And Usually While Drunk, So I Have Little Memory.

Optimism Sprouts From The Knowledge That You Are In Control Of Your Own Life, Not Your Past And Not Those Around You. Part Of Being In Control Is Taking Responsibility For How You Feel. This Means Not Just Admitting To Uncomfortable Feelings But Then Examining Your Circumstances To See What Can Be Done To Change These Feelings At The Source.

But I Can Also Write In Crappy Motel Rooms, While Standing In Line, Or Sitting In The Dentist's Chair.

If You Find You Require Willpower, You Aren't Ready To Lose Weight.

There's Never A False Note In A Berg Novel.

This Is What You Should Know About Losing Someone You Love. They Do Not Travel Alone. You Go With Them.

Someone You Love

Fact: Upon Locking Yourself Our Of Your Apartment You Will Immediately Need To Use The Bathroom. Fact: And Then You Will Stand In Place And Watch Your Door. You Will Just Stare. As Though Rebuffed By It. As Though It Has Done This To You.

But I Am Not Here Ironically; I Am Here Sincerely.

The Past Doesn't Haunt Us, We Haunt The Past.

Applause Is A Constant Thing In Aa. It's How We Buy Drinks For Each Other.

And She's A Nurse. Do You Know How Hard Nursing School Is? It's Like Medical School. So She's Obviously Smart.

When I First Thought Of Being A Writer I Had Visions Of Stacks Of Books In Stores With My Name On Them, That Sort Of Thing. But I Never Imagined This Would Be The Reaction.

The Reason I Know What We Are To Each Other Is Because We Fight Freely And Almost Constantly, About Even The Smallest Thing. In Fact, Once We Didn't Speak For An Entire Week Because He Didn't Like The Way I Loaded His Dishwasher...i Can't Decide If We're Exact Opposites, Or Somehow Exactly The Same Except For Minor Cosmetic Differences. I Do Know That All Of His Friends Hate Me And All Of My Friends Hate Him. We Drive Each Other Crazy In Ways That Nobody Else Can Even Touch. We Never Bore Each Other. And We Both Realize What A Rare Thing This Is.

It Was Like Living In A New House. I Saw The Undersides Of Tables, Walked Through The Tangle Of Chair Legs. It Would Be Good To Be A Dog, I Thought. You Would Feel Safe Surrounded By All Of These Leggy Objects That Never Tried To Run Away.

And I Tend To Listen To Npr When I'm Not Writing.

In General, Advertising Isn't A "creative" Atmosphere. It's A Business Atmosphere And Your Job Is Puzzle Solving. My Favorite Aspect Of The Business, I Guess, Was Presenting To Clients. What I Enjoyed Least Were The Clients. Worried Corporate Brand Managers, Trying To Dumb-down Their Ads For The Stupid American Population. I Hated The Disrespect That These People Had For "consumers."

Never Work With Children, Puppies Or Bulimics.

I Hate News And Information And Anything That Threatens To Puncture The Bubble Of Oblivion In Which I Live.

He Was Raised Without A Proper Diagnosis.

The Past Does Not Haunt Us. We Haunt The Past. We Allow Our Minds To Focus In That Direction. We Open Memories And Examine Them. We Reexperience Emotions We Felt During The Painful Events We Experienced Because We Are Recalling Them In As Much Detail As We Can.

It Was A Salad Bar Of Phobias

I Could Write Another Collection Of Personal Essays From What Has Happened To Me In The Last Year Alone. I Don't Seek Out My Material - It Finds Me. I Am Magnetic, Somehow.

I Saw A Monkey Walking On A Leash And Thought It Was An Ugly Foreign Child.

No Matter How Huge Your Loss, As Long As You Remain Engaged With Your Life, The Best Days Of Your Life May Still Be Ahead Of You. Don't Misunderstand Me: The Pain Of Your Loss Will Remain With You For The Rest Of Your Life. But Great Joy Will Be There Right Beside It. Deep Sorrow And Deep Joy Can Exist Within You, Side By Side. At Every Moment. And It's Not Confusing. And It's Not A Conflict.

I Loved Most When His Eyelashes Twitched And He Blinked, And Suddenly Happiness Was There Inside His Eyes. Unmistakable. Like A Single Word Printed On A Clean White Page.

Each Time My Mother Went Psychotic, I Hoped It Would Be The Last Time. Afterward She Would Tell Me, 'i Think That Was The Final Episode. I Think I Had A Breakthrough.' And I Would Believe-for A Few Months-that It Was True. That She Was Back To Stay. Maybe It Was Like Having A Rock Star Mother Who Was Always On The Road. Were There Benatar Children? Did They Sit Around And Wonder If Their Mom's Hell Is For Children Tour Was Going To Be Her Last Tour?

No Matter What I've Written, Someone Somewhere Has Come Up To Me And Said, "me Too." The Truth Can Be Offensive, But It's Always Nourishing, In A Way. You Recognize It. You Can Feel It. And Even If [readers] Think, "my God, I Would Never Get In Those Situations," Within Those Ridiculous Circumstances That I Have Created For Myself, They Know The Way I Respond Is Probably What They Would Do Too.

I Don't Really Think Of My Blog As A Real Blog. It's A Lame Blog. It's More Like My When-the-mood-strikes Update, Or Smoke Signal.

I'll Always Write About What's Going On In My Life And The Reason For That Is It's Not Actually Because I'm So Fascinated With Myself, It's Because I Can't Think. I Can't Think Like Have Thoughts In My Head And Think Them Through And Come To A Conclusion. It's Like Math For Me.

It Was Unnerving, The Way She Could Go From Cool Efficiency To Sarcastic To Sweet Within The Space Of Thirty Seconds. I Found It Very Manipulative And Controlling. It Put The Other Person Constantly On-guard. And It Was Extremely Intimidating Because You Never Knew When She Was Going To Snap. I Made A Mental Note To Refine These Skills Within Myself.

The Truth Is Humbling, Terrifying, And Often Exhilarating. It Blows The Doors Off The Hinges And Fills The World With Fresh Air.

When I Ate Vanilla Frosting Straight From The Can, I Could Feel God Standing Right Nest To Me Like A Real Best Friend, Watching, And Smiling, And Wishing He Had A Mouth.

Real Optimism Is Not The Pep Talk You Give Yourself. It Is Earned Through The Labor Involved In Emotional Housekeeping.

While I Liked Hamsters, Too, The Habitrail Cage Was Expensive. Even I Could See That The Interconnecting Boxes, Tubes, And Spheres Could Easily Bankrupt A Family And Lead To Addiction Later In Life. Because, How Would You Know When To Stop? How Could You Stop? An Entire City Could Be Built With A Habitrail.

I Was Like A Packet Of Powdered Sea Monkeys And They Were Like Water.

A Lot Of People Can Be Afraid Of The Masking Because People Can Misrepresent Themselves [in The Internet] And They Can Pose As People They're Not. Well, Yeah; That's True. That's One Side Of It. But The Other Side Of It Is That It Equalizes You And If You Happen To Be A Person Who Is Not Equal In The Eyes Of The Greater Society That's A Damn Good Thing.

My Mother Began To Go Crazy. Not In A 'let's Paint The Kitchen Red!' Sort Of Way. But Crazy In A 'gas Oven, Toothpaste Sandwhich, I Am God' Sort Of Way.

You Can Make Almost Anything A Learning Or Positive Experience. I Think I Offer A Good Example Of How To Make The Most Out Of What Life Gives You And How To Keep Moving On.

Glen Had A Disability More Disfiguring Than A Burn And More Terrifying Than Cancer. Glen Had Been Born On The Day After Christmas. "my Parents Just Combine My Birthday With Christmas, That's All," He Explained. But We Knew This Was A Lie. Glen's Parents Just Wrapped A Couple Of His Christmas Presents In Birthday-themed Wrapping Paper, Stuck Some Candles In A Supermarket Cake, And Had A Dinner Of Christmas Leftovers.

I Did Not Consider Him To Be Any Kind Of A Genius. I Considered Him Deeply Lacking In The Area That Mattered Most In Life. Star Quality.

Because I've Lived In One Room My Entire Life, Working At The Same Table That You Use To Pay Bills At And Eat At. It's Going To Be Nice To Have Actual Space.

It's Weird - Sort Of Not Terribly Wise - To Take A Book That Was Successful And Then Change Its Cover.

The Thing For Someone Just Starting Off [in Writing] Is To Write. You Need To Have Limber Fingers, Whether You Write With Your Fingers Or You Type On Your Laptop, But You Need To Have A Limber Mind And You Need To Be Able To Write Without Judging What You've Written, At Least Right Away, And Without Editing Right Away.

The Most I Would Do Was Use The Shadow Tool In Photoshop To Bring Out The Muscular Rips In My Stomach, Which Were Honestly There. Beneath The Fat.

Any Damage That's Been Done, You Have To Fix Yourself Because It Needs Fixing And There Is Nobody Else To Do The Work. Blame May Well Be Justified, But It's Not Going To Move You Forward In Your Life.

The Truth Is That Nobody Is Owed An Apology For Anything. Apologies Are Lovely When They Happen. But They Change Nothing. They Do Not Reverse Actions Or Correct Damage. They Are Merely Nice To Hear.

The Problem With Not Having Anybody To Tell You What To Do, I Understood, Is That There Was Nobody To Tell You What Not To Do.

What Nobody Understood Then Is This: The Only Way That You Achieve What You Want And Fulfill Your Dreams And Become Great Is By Demanding That Sort Of Attention. You Have To Make It Happen.

Love Is A Helium-based Emotion; Love Always Takes The High Road.

Taking The High Road

I Never Could Have Written The Screenplay Because I Would Have Been Forced To Learn New Software And I Can't Learn One More Thing.

My Subconscious Does The Writing; I Don't Have Control Over That.

But Even With My Minimal Amount Of Fame, There Are Certain Perks. Recently, I Was At A Movie Premier, And At The Party After The Movie, Meryl Streep Was Loose, Walking Around The Room Like A Normal Person. Absolutely Nothing Was Preventing Me From Lunging Toward Her And Shrieking "dingoes Ate My Baby! Dingoes Ate My Baby!

I Don't Sit Down At Nine In The Morning And Begin Writing And Then Take A Break For Lunch And Stop At Four. I Have No Structure Like That. I Am At My Computer Constantly, More Or Less Attached To It. I Live On-line And Hate Being Off-line And Don't Care How Unhealthy It Is.

What I Really Want Is To Sit Next To Someone Under An L.l. Bean Blanket On The Beach In The Fall And Drink Coffee From The Same Mug. I Don't Want Some Rusty '73 Ford Pinto With A Factory-defective Gas Tank That Causes It To Explode When It's Rear-ended In The Parking Lot Of The Supermarket. So Why Do I Keep Looking For Pintos?

Like Every Child, I Adored Her. Until I Formed A Brain And Got To Know Her.

I'm Like The Guy Who Prepares Your Taxes Or A Dentist. I'm Very Conservative And Boring In A Lot Of Ways.

Acceptance, When It Comes, Arrives In Waves: Listen With Your Chest. You Will Feel A Pendulum Swing Within You, Favoring One Direction Or Another. And That Is Your Answer. The Answer Is Always Inside Your Chest. The Right Choice Weighs More. That's How You Know. It Causes You To Lean In Its Direction.

Women Smirk At Baldness. How Adorable Would They Find It If They Began To Lose Their Breasts In Their Late Twenties? If Both Tits Just Shrunk Up - Unevenly I Might Add - And Eventually Turned Into Wine-cork Nubs. Then It Would Be A Different Story. Then Men Would Get The Pity That They Deserve. As Far As I'm Concerned, Baldness Is The Male Breast Cancer Only Worse, Because Almost Everyone Gets It. True, It's Not Life Threatening. Just Social-life Threatening. But In New York City, There Is No Difference.

I've Just Finished My Next Collection, Possible Side Effects, And I'm Now Working On A Collection Of Holiday Stories As Well As A Memoir About My Relationship With My Father.

I Love To Both Give And Receive Very Old Books.

Giving And Receiving

Childhood Is What Ended Me Up In The Hospital And Teetering On The Edge Of Deathly Alcoholism. It Was Really Good For Me To Accept It. To Accept All The Embarrassment And The Shame So I Don't Feel Like I Used To.

God, I Felt Certain, Did Not Mind That I Didn’t Press My Hands Together To Pray. I Was Casual, But I Was Sincere. I Knew That God Existed As The Correct Answer Inside My Chest.

I Don't Have A Fixed Routine. I Write Every Day But I Don't "write" Every Day, If That Makes Any Sense. In Other Words, I Email With My Friends Constantly And Sometimes I'll Pull Out Something I've Written And Save It.

I Think Writers Tend To Be Experience Junkies, And I Think They Also Tend To Want To Be On The Outside Looking In.

Other People Sound Flat To My Ear; Their Words Just Hang In The Air. But When My Mother Says Something, The Ends Curl.

My Brother Was Born Without Taste Or The Desire To Be Professionally Lit.

You Deserve To Need Me, Not To Have Me.

Dennis Looked At The Puppy In The Window. We Both Did. It Was The Oddest Thing. Normally, Puppies In Pet Store Windows Sleep Or Pee Or Roll Around On Top Of Other Dogs. This One Ignored Us Its Window-mates And Was Instead Sitting With Its Nose Pressed Against The Glass, Looking At Us With An Extremely Serious Little Expression On Its Face. An Expression That Seemed To Me To Be Saying, "i Am A Sacred Cow. Get Out Your Wallet.

Time Moves Only Forward, Never Back. We Look Forward To A Moment And Then It Arrives And An Instant Later It Is Gone. Like Something On The Surface Of A River That We Reached For But Did Not Touch In Time And It Carried On, Away. You Cannot Be A Prisoner Of Your Past Against Your Will. Because You Can Only Live In The Past Inside Your Mind.

What I Think Of Blogs Is Just This: Some Are Beautifully Written And Many Are Not. But Even Blogs That Aren't Necessarily "well" Written Are Great For The Person Writing Them.

I Don't Believe In The Concept Of A Soul Mate. Because We Are All Unique, But We're Also Simply Too Similar.

Bad News Should Be Followed With Soup. Then A Nap.

Marriage Is Overdone. As Long As There Are People, People Are Going To Find It Interesting.

Decisions Are Beautiful. They Are The Evidence Of Thought And Care. Decisions Are The Polishing Cloths Of Life.

My Attraction Had Been Immediate And Profound. And It Had Nothing To Do With The Way He Looked. My Attraction Was To What Resided Between His Lines.

Even Painfully Shy And Awkward People Are Not Painfully Shy Or Awkward When They Are Alone. The Way To Access This Natural, Comfortable Alone-self When You Are With Others Is By Choosing To Forbid Yourself To Wonder What "they" Are Thinking. Instead, Force Yourself To Exist In The Instant, Then Take It- And Give It- As It Comes.

I Hate Feelings. Why Does Sobriety Have To Come With Feelings?

My Window Fogs And This Makes Me Feel Like There Is No World Outside Of The Car.

I'm Always Prepared For The Worst.

Most Everybody Had Made At Least One Bad, Drunken Decision In Their Lives. Called An Ex At Two In The Morning. Or Perhaps Has A Little Too Much To Drink On A Second Date And Wept Inconsolably While Revealing How Simply Damaged One Was, While Nonetheless Retaining An Uncommonly Large Capacity For Love. That Kind Of Thing Was, While Regrettable, At Least Comprehensible. But Waking Up With Someone Generationally Inappropriate, Like Your Grandfather's Best Buddy?

In The Opening To The Mary Tyler Moore Show Mary's In The Supermarket, Hurrying Through The Aisles. She Pauses At The Meat Case, Picks Up A Steak And Checks The Price. Then Rolls Her Eyes, Shrugs And Tosses It In The Cart. That's Kind Of How I Feel. Sure I Would Have Liked Things To Be Different. But, 'roll Of Eyes' What Can You Do? 'shrug' I Threw The Meat In My Cart And Moved On.

When You Have Your Health, You Have Everything. When You Do Not Have Your Health, Nothing Else Matters At All.

I Think People Tend To See The Bigger Point, Which Is Maybe Not Fitting In And Feeling Like You Didn't Have The Childhood That You Expected You Would Have, Or That You Felt Lonely Or Struggled With Drugs And Alcohol Or Just That You Were Able To Achieve Your Dreams.

Not Crazy In A 'let's Paint The Kitchen Bright Red!' Sort Of Way. But Crazy In A 'gas Oven, Toothpaste Sandwich, I Am God' Sort Of Way. Gone Were The Days When She Would Stand On The Deck Lighting Lemon-scented Candles Without Then Having To Eat The Wax.p28

My Parents Had This Relationship That Was Really Terrifying. I Mean, The Level Of Hatred That They Had, And The Level Of Physical Abuse - My Mother Would Beat Up My Father, Basically - And I Think I Was Drawn To Images On Television That Were Bright And Reflective.

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