My Mother Still Calls Me

Evaluate. Long Experience Had Taught Me To Evaluate And Assess. When The Unexpected Gets Dumped On You, Don’t Waste Time. Don’t Figure Out How Or Why It Happened. Don’t Recriminate. Don’t Figure Out Whose Fault It Is. Don’t Work Out How To Avoid The Same Mistake Next Time. All Of That You Do Later. If You Survive.

I Was Fired From My Television Job, Simple As That. Well, Downsized, Really, A Classic 1990s Situation.

All Of Us Write Wish Fulfillment.

This Was Like July 13th, 1943, The Pivotal Day Of The Battle Of The Kursk. We Were Like Alexander Vasilevsky, The Soviet General. If We Attacked Now, This Minute, We Had To Keep On And On Attacking Until The Enemy Was Run Off His Feet And The War Was Won. If We Bogged Down Or Paused For Breath Even For A Second, We Would Be Overrun Again.

I Had A Teacher Once, Grade School Somewhere. Philippines, I Think, Because She Always Wore A Big White Hat. So It Was Somewhere Hot. I Was Always Twice The Size Of The Other Kids, And She Used To Say To Me: Count To Ten Before You Get Mad, Reacher. And I've Counted Way Past Ten On This One. Way Past.