--NOTHING HURTS LIKE A GAP, NOTHING AT ALL

…Life is beautiful.  Sometimes I just have to remind myself of that.  It’s also the title of my second favorite movie of all time.

…Still, June, usually so kind, has been anything but thus far.  Every day’s been a rifle butt to the skull, ankle caught in a bracelet or beartrap.  But hey, we all go through stretches like this.  Right?

…House Arrest or jail, which is better?  I’ll get back to you on that.

…If I can’t be self-sufficient, what else can I be?

…It’s a terrible thing to wish the days would fly by faster when you only get so many days to begin with.

…The Handmaid’s Tale has got me strung out and wrung out.  It’s completely riveting.  Watch it.

…Same with Rocketman.  I set a new record for chills.

…I wrote my second most personal piece the other day—The Thing About (My) Drinking.  It could have been called This Is Me Being Brave Part 2.  It should be up today or tomorrow.  If so, I’ll post the link here Friday.

…Whenever I’m having a bad day, the way I work myself out of it is to make someone else’s day better.  Consequently, I’ve ended up making a lot of people happy so far this month.

…If I look down, the little I own might pour out of me and then all that nothingness would be confirmed once and for all.

… "Gentlemen, why don't you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh, I should die."- Abraham Lincoln

…There’s always someone willing to take what’s yours, provided it’s gently used.

…In the past two months I’ve read the manuscripts of five friends’ books, blurbed two, gave detailed notes on two others, and wrote a review of another.  I don’t know what that means, other than I have a hard time saying, No.

…By the time we finished, I knew we’d never be finished.

…Sometimes there can be a big space between your dream and reality, and sometimes there can be a really thin line between your dream and reality.

…There are so many ways to disappoint yourself.

…When’s the last time you cried like you’ve never cried before?  When’s the time you cried the hardest?

…“Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden.  I don’t know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword.  Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it.  Either, or: it takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both.”—

James Baldwin

…The evidence of my healing is not that pretty.  In fact, it’s hardly evidence at all.

…People whose first instinct is to smile when you make eye contact with them are some of earth’s greatest treasures.

…I’m not a napper.  I wish I was.  Those few times I’ve actually been able to—I awake and don’t know where I am.  It’s kind of frightening to wake up and not know where you.

…The truth is so much less engraved.  You might even say, unpopular.

…“Better” never means better for everyone.

…There’s a kind of hope, even in futility.

…After a while, Crocodile.