Life is fucking impossible. I can build this illusion of safety, of meaning, and satisfaction out of complete emptiness. This can’t be right. The things that should be incredibly satisfying and real, on the other hand, have absolutely no way of existing, crumble the minute I touch them. So I do [...]

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She found out about her disease on a vaguely sunny Saturday afternoon, when not much of anything was happening. The quiet suburban street outside her quiet suburban house was empty — even the dog-walkers had abandoned her to her brooding, moody thoughts. She had been feeling off for quite some weeks, and when [...]

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James did not know about his aunt’s sudden wordlessness when he came to visit her as usual one Sunday morning. He liked to come early enough to catch her making breakfast in her kitchen, concentrating hard on the coffee-stained print-out of some new recipe she’d found online. It reminded him of childhood — [...]

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I am again, almost good, almost righteous, almost true.
I am sorry for everything that I do.
But if nothing else, this song is beautiful.

eef barzelay

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We are metaphysically challenged. Seems like the only way to tell you about my soul is to tell you about everything but. We come up with elaborate metaphors, constructions of babel-esque loftiness to achieve the meaning of just one word. In order for me to tell you about the shape of my [...]

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James got into the habit of driving up to her house on Sundays, when he did not have a graduate study group to host, nor felt the pressure to be socially successful. It was like going to church — driving up to her house and not speaking a word all day. At first he found [...]

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It is 9:34am. He is at work. So am I. It is Monday morning and I have already settled into the week. He has not. He concentrates on keeping the day — the week — at bay, keeping the chaos under control as the flow of email slowly spirals outwards. [...]

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I’m so glad the world is filled with people who are smarter than I am. This is the great joy of life — there is never a dearth of things to learn.
I’ve been listening to Sufjan Stevens sing about Michigan, and he gets it — the state, the state of mind — in a [...]

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I’m not sure what to think about this book yet. Except that it is absurd, the extent to which we affect each other, hurl words at each other with seeming thoughtlessness that land and leave a dent and change, as Denis Johnson would say, the shape or our soul. How strange, our need [...]

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I should go to sleep. I have to be awake soon. Tomorrow is going to be long and hectic and filled with meetings and responsibilities. I should have gone to sleep hours ago. But I refuse. I refuse to give up this beautiful wakefulness. Some days everything is too [...]

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