Twenty Years After We Had

I'll Tell You The Secret. When You Begin With A Character, You Want To Begin By Creating A Villain.

Delia Picked At The Raw Sores Of Her Conscience...drunk Or Sober, Delia Lived In The Small Town In Her Heart, Ignoring The World In Which All Her Love Had Turned To Grief.

Beauty, My First Girlfriend Said To Me, Is That Inner Quality Often Associated With Great Amounts Of Leisure Time.

I Told Her, Don't Touch Me That Way. Don't Come At Me With That Sour-cream Smile. Come At Me As If I Were Worth Your Life - The Life We Make Together. Take Me Like A Turtle Whose Shell Must Be Cracked, Whose Heart Is Ice, Who Needs Your Heat. Love Me Like A Warrior, Sweat Up To Your Earlobes And All Your Hope Between Your Teeth. Love Me So I Know I Am At Least As Important As Anything You Have Ever Wanted.

And Of Course These Days I Feel Like There Is A Nation Of Us - Displaced Southerners And Children Of The Working Class. We Listen To Steve Earle, Mary J. Blige, And K.d. Lang. We Devour Paperback Novels And Tell Evil Mean Stories, Value Stubbornness Above Patience And A Sense Of Humor More Than A College Education. We Claim Our Heritage With A Full Appreciation Of How Often It Has Been Disdained. And Let Me Promise You, You Do Not Want To Make Us Angry.