Do What I Will Never

He Owned An Expensive Camera That Required Thought Before You Pressed The Shutter, And I Quickly Became His Favorite Subject, Round-faced, Missing Teeth, My Thick Bangs In Need Of A Trim. They Are Still The Pictures Of Myself I Like Best, For They Convey That Confidence Of Youth I No Longer Possess, Especially In Front Of A Camera.

And Wasn't It Terrible, How Much He Looked Forward To Those Moments, So Much So That Sometimes Even A Ride By Himself On The Subway Was The Best Part Of The Day? Wasn't It Terrible That After All The Work One Put Into Finding A Person To Spend One's Life With, After Making A Family With That Person, Even In Spite Of Missing That Person...that Solitude Was What One Relished The Most, The Only Thing That, Even In Fleeting, Diminished Doses, Kept One Sane?

I Wanted To Pull Away From The Things That Marked My Parents As Being Different.

The First Sentence Of A Book Is A Handshake, Perhaps An Embrace. Style And Personality Are Irrelevant. They Can Be Formal Or Casual. They Can Be Tall Or Short Or Fat Or Thin. They Can Obey The Rules Or Break Them. But They Need To Contain A Charge. A Live Current, Which Shocks And Illuminates.

I've Never Had Internet Access. Actually, I Have Looked At Things On Other People's Computers As A Bystander. A Few Times In My Life I've Opened Email Accounts, Twice Actually, But It's Something I Don't Want In My Life Right Now.