--I AM HERE ROOTING FOR YOUR HAPPY ENDING, EVEN IF YOU DON'T KNOW IT

  

…I’m at 88 books for the year.  Last week was all about massive reading.  A few favorites were GOODBYE, VITAMIN by Rachel Khong, Kim Chinquee’s new collection SHOT GIRLS with the title story being absolute killer, BLOWOUT by Denise Duhamel, and also a life-skills book THE 5 SECOND RULE by Mel Robbins, which had some great tips and insights even if it could have been cut by half.

…I saw the translated version of my story THE RUNNER today.  In Spanish.  My first translation.  It’s going to be in a journal from Argentina, then anthologized along with some other authors.  Kind of exciting.

…Even more exciting was seeing the galleys for my new collection THIS IS WHY I NEED YOU.  It looks really great.

…In the words of Lou Gehrig, “Today I stand before you the luckiest man alive.”

…It’s raining here, buckets and buckets.  In a few minutes I’m going to have to go out with a bucket and scoop all the rain out of the water bike or it’s sinking, a goner for sure.  I don’t care.  Let it rain.

…I hope it’s a fantastic weekend for you.  I’m sure it will be.  Here’s some things that caught my eye:

“Maybe that's enlightenment enough — to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.” 
--Anthony Bourdain

  

“The day is like us, she thinks; it has decided yet what it wants to become.” Phillip Levine


"I never said it would be easy. I said it would be worth it."- Pete Egoscue

"Good friendships are fragile things and require as much care as any other fragile and precious thing."- Randolph S. Bourne

"Most of us can, if we choose, make this world either a prison or a palace."- Lord Avebury

"There was no such thing as half-trying. Whether it was running a race or catching a football, competing in school -- we were to try. And we were to try harder than anyone else. We might not be the best, and none of us were, but we were to make the effort to be the best."-Robert F. Kennedy

"I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amidst the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail."- Charles A. Beard

 "For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive."- David Herbert Lawrence

"We've all got to go to school, I expect, and we don't all get the same lesson to learn, but the one we do get is our'n, 'taint nobody else's, and if it's real hard, why, it shows the teacher thinks we're capable."- Rose Terry Cooke

"The manner in which it is given is worth more than the gift."- Pierre Corneille