—YOU’RE MY FAVORITE BODY OF WATER

…How cute is that?  To believe in one’s self again while staring at a sunrise that isn’t really there.

…I called you to come carry me up, but you swallowed me whole instead.

…I’ve left my panic everywhere, faint traces of it eating away at everything.

…I’m tired of abstraction.  No one says what they mean anymore so that everything becomes an unsolvable riddle.

…There’s a special edition of TIME magazine with the title “The Science of Happiness” sitting on my office floor next to me.  I bought it, like a week ago.  I wonder why I haven’t read it yet.

…I want to suffer for as long as I can, because it means I am living.

…We’ve all seen what bodies can do, and it’s not pretty, but it could be.

…I never know how stressed I am until I realize how much damage I’ve done to the insides of my cheeks from chewing them.

…Sometimes people can’t even agree on why they disagree.

…Please do me a favor and fall in love with distance between you and the next person.

…I like to eavesdrop.  I like being a voyeur.  Other people’s lives always seem so much more interesting than mine.

...“I have the New York Times, and fourteen dimes, and answers to the most profound nursery rhymes...”  Robbie Benson and I are probably the only two people on the planet who know that lyric, and he could well have forgotten it by now, but it’s presently running through my head.

…Right now there are two people standing up in boat, fishing.  It looks about as fun as jail time.

…I’m not a big fan of “Love ya.”  Either say it and mean it, or don’t.

…I wrote some very strange things yesterday, strange even for me.  I wonder if I’ll be brave enough to post them here someday.

…Yesterday the house was so quiet that I thought it was talking to me.  I didn’t answer back, though.  At least I can’t remember doing so.

…I’ve never met a bridge I liked.  They all seem like they want to kill me, collapse right when I get to the middle of them.

…When I was in the corporate world, I was a lot more decisive.  I’d have to make fifty to a hundred decisions a day.  (Really, I’m not exaggerating.)  Now I can’t even decide what day it is, or if I’m glad that it’s that day.

…If I’m sad, will be sad with me?  Your answer will tell me a lot.

…People think I have an eating disorder.  Maybe I do, just a little.  But it’s not like I never eat.  I eat if I’m hungry.  I’m just not hungry very often.

…Some people have complicated relationships with their body.  Maybe I do, too.

…This is not a safe alternative to cigarettes.

…There you go again, sitting on the fence when it’s electrified.

…I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’ve felt like one plenty of times, and wished I was one lots of other times.

…I wonder if everyone has secrets they’re too afraid to share, or if it’s just me.

…I wrote a story about secrets called “Written In Stone.”  It’s (shocker) pretty dark.  It’s my son’s favorite.  The other day I got two separate notes about two different stories of mine that people really liked for some reason.  They weren’t even close to my best stories.  I guess that just means everyone has different tastes.

…One of these days, on a long run, I might not make it back.  But couldn’t we all say that?

...“God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy...”

…Roadkill is like the sun: if you're smart, you never look directly at it, you look around it.

…My brother had an ant farm in an aquarium for a while when I was young.  It was like staring into a fire, so mesmerizing.  Those little guys are sure industrious.  They never stop moving.  They make me look like a total slacker.

….Christine Schutt…. Wow.  And people tell me I write dark stuff.  Sheesh.

…It’s been a lucky couple of weeks.  My depression’s been out of town.  I hope it hasn’t been hassling anybody else.  Fuck you, depression.

…Tomorrow I’m going to run to the moon and back.  I’ll try to catch you a star or two.

…Dear God, give me clarity of the mind, and take it easy on me, if you can.