Sometimes, my Thursdays look like a cookie sheet full of freshly baked cookies. Given my various commitments, this doesn't always make much sense, but let's just call it my way of powering through the madness. Weekday baking is also something that I try to reserve for special occasions, like when friends come from out of…
Last night I dreamed that a great monster was riding on me and bawling: "Giddup! I am called the Pneumatic Inhaler, did you know? And I adore riding on writers!" I asked him: "You, Sir, are not a publisher or a censor?" I am one of those extinct monsters in Hutchinson's book but--although I am…
"There is a fight going on inside me. It is a terrible fight and it is between 2 wolves. One wolf is evil --he is self-pity, envy, regret, resentment, anger, self-indulgence, ego. The other wolf is good -- he is love, compassion, hope, kindness, peace, humility, generosity." The old chief went on to say, "This…
I was startled by this, the speed with which one apocryphal watercolor was transforming our future. A minute ago, there had been an opened book, a crazy notion--we could go or we could stay--and now, not five minutes later, the book was shut. We were going. Simple as that. -Karen Russell ("From Children's Reminiscences of…
The outsider may indeed wonder at this seeming much ado about nothing. What a tempest in a tea-cup! he will say. But when we consider how small after all the cup of human enjoyment is, how soon overflowed with tears, how easily drained to the dregs in our quenchless thirst for infinity, we shall not…
Dining with Dostoevsky 