Before You Get A Dog,

Before You Get A Dog, You Can't Quite Imagine What Living With One Might Be Like; Afterward, You Can't Imagine Living Any Other Way.

I'm Still Prone To Periods Of Isolation, Still More Fearful Of The World Out There And More Averse To Pleasure And Risk Than I'd Like To Be; I Still Direct More Energy Toward Controlling And Minimizing Appetites Than Toward Indulging Them.

To A Drinker The Sensation Is Real And Pure And Akin To Something Spiritual: You Seek; In The Bottle, You Find.

Around The Time I Began Starving, In The Early Eighties, The Visual Image Had Begun To Supplant Text As Culture's Primary Mode Of Communication, A Radical Change Because Images Work So Differently Than Words: They're Immediate, They Hit You At Levels Way Beneath Intellect, They Come Fast And Furious.

On The Broad Spectrum Of Solitude, I Lean Toward The Extreme End: I Work Alone, As Well As Live Alone, So I Can Pass An Entire Day Without Uttering So Much As A Hello To Another Human Being. Sometimes A Day's Conversation Consists Of Only Five Words, Uttered At The Local Starbucks: 'large Coffee With Milk, Please.