A Lot Of People Don't

Kools And Newports Were For Black People And Lower-class Whites. Camels Were For Procrastinators, Those Who Wrote Bad Poetry, And Those Who Put Off Writing Bad Poetry. Merits Were For Sex Addicts, Salems Were For Alcoholics, And Mores Were For People Who Considered Themselves To Be Outrageous But Really Weren't.

After The Trial, I Watched As Another Female Pathologist Collected Maggots From A Spinal Column Found In The Desert. There Was A Decomposed Head, Too, And Before Leaving Work She Planned To Simmer It And Study The Exposed Cranium For Contusions. I Was Asked To Pass This Information Along To The Chief Medical Examiner, And, Looking Back, I Perhaps Should Have Chosen My Words More Carefully. 'fire Up The Kettle,' I Told Him. 'ol'-fashioned Skull Boil At Five P.m.

Actually I Liked That 'let The Right One In,' That Swedish Vampire Movie.

It Can Take Years. With The First Draft, I Just Write Everything. With The Second Draft, It Becomes So Depressing For Me, Because I Realize That I Was Fooled Into Thinking I'd Written The Story. I Hadn't-i Had Just Typed For A Long Time. So Then I Have To Carve Out A Story From The 25 Or So Pages. It's In There Somewhere-but I Have To Find It. I'll Then Write A Third, Fourth, And Fifth Draft, And So On.

His Embarassment Would Have Pleased Me, But Once He Recovered, There Would Be That Awkward Period That Sometimes Culminates In A Handshake. I Didn't Want To Touch These People's Hands Or See Things From Their Point Of View, I Just Wanted To Continue Hating Them. So I Kept My Mouth Shut And Stared Off Into Space.