Last night at Tanglewood was terrific. Listening to the Boston Symphony play Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and being near my new friends on our picnic blankets, I experienced what seemed like a moment of pure happiness and tried to sear it into my memory, for days in the future when I’m feeling down.

It almost seems as though my lifeline is wired to it. My breathing capacity is measured by the amount of lives I touch with my words. 

It’s obvious our attraction to each other hasn’t faded. I love seeing all my old friends in New York, but with Ronna, it’s different: my heart leaps a little. I went out with her to the bagel bakery on 80th Street and then walked her back home to 95th Street. She gave me a bagel and a kiss at the door.

We tend to find ourselves in odd and sometimes infuriating situations that are unique to the business we are in.

The golden rule of fashion design also applies to freelance writing: Style matters.

Setting a daily goal will give you something to aim for. Make it small and attainable so that you can hit your goal each day and start building momentum.

I just write what I would read. I want sex, I want honesty, I want tomfoolery. I want me. 

Writing allowed me to transcend that level, to be somebody else, like a film director who gets to direct how the story will flow; that was my job: to tell the stories I wanted to tell.

I write until I reach an exhilarating feeling of depersonalization – the moment when you see yourself from the outside, in your purest form.

Today I began my career as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Miami. The loss of status is a bit jarring. When I arrived at the meeting, the composition program director, Kathy Bell, mistook me for the janitor and started telling me to clean up the room before I explained who I was.