When You Wage War On

As For Family Values, They Are Whatever They Are - Some Families Are Tight, Others Are Blown Away Like Dandelion Puffs. A Main Value In Minnesota Is Still: Don't Waste My Time, Don't B.s. Me, I Wasn't Born Yesterday.

Writing Is The Main Gig And Teaching And Performing Are Sidelines, An Excuse For Not Writing More. Working On A Novel And On An Opera Make Me Seriously Want To Retire And Find A Volunteer Job As A Docent At The Zoo Explaining To Schoolchildren Where Frogs Go In The Winter.

As A Former English Major, I Am A Sitting Duck For Gift Books, And In The Past Few Years I've Gotten Dickens, Thackeray, Smollet, Richardson, Emerson, Keats, Boswell And The Brontes, All Of Them Great, None Of Them Ever Read By Me, All Of Them Now On A Shelf, Looking At Me And Making Me Feel Guilty.

Second Violins Can Play A Concerto Perfectly If They're In Their Own Home And Nobody's There.

The Great Unrequited Love Tears Open Your Heart To The Beauty Of The World, Its Small Rivers And Upland Meadows. It Also Makes You Kinder To The Next Hundred Thousand Persons Who Cross Your Path.