--I AM HERE FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER

…Did I tell you that I got my new book, “I’m Not Supposed To Be Here And Neither Are You” in the mail?  It’s a second story collection, and just a rough copy at this point, but it should be out by the end of March.  Even in an early form, it looks great and makes me so happy just looking at it, kind of the way a newborn does for a parent.

 …Speaking of being a parent; I miss my son but will have to make do with these things:

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await a new voice.” T.S. Elliot

 “Remember that the life of this world is but a sport and a pastime.” Koran, LVII 19

 "Everything pours forth. Photographs their history. Books their words. Walls their sounds." Patti Smith

 “Whatever you’re mean to do, do it now.  The conditions are always impossible.” Doris Lessing

“In dark times, the antidote to despair and paralysis is making art : There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge—even wisdom. Like art." Lidia Yuknivitch

 “If you have done well, it is your duty to send the elevator back down.” Kevin Spacey

4) never shop under the influence, but in my defense it was on sale!!

5) when everyone knows you're a nurse they think it's ok to describe their last colonoscopy to me.

Thank god the liquor stores are open tomorrow!!

 “You have to learn to leave the table when love is no longer being served.” Nina Simone

I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity and her flaming self-respect and it's these things I'd believe in even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all that she should be. But of course the real reason is that I love her and that's the beginning and end of everything."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Last night I dreamt somebody loved me.  No hope, no harm.  Another false alarms.” Morrissey

 “Build me a museum and I will fill it.” Picasso

 “Alcohol makes people less tedious.” Christopher Hitchens

 “The point is, art never stopped a war or got anybody a job.  That was never its function.  Art cannot change events, but it can change people.  It can affect people so that they are changed—people are changed by art: ennobled, enriched, encourage.  They then act in a way that may affect the course of events: by the way they vote, they behave, by the way they think.” L. R. Bernstein