America is a didactic country whose people always offer their personal experiences as a helpful lesson to the rest, hoping to hearten them and do them good–an intense sort of personal public relations project. there are times when I see this as idealism. There are other times when it looks to me like pure delirium. — Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift
Sitting in a coffee shop listening to Merle Haggard’s “5:01 Blues” revising a short story a few hours from the start of my own family dinner feels like what Wallace Stevens called the intensest rendezvous. The world and its discontents stay for the moment outside. Thank you for allowing me into your lives.
Humanizing The Vacuum 