no matter what i do, i never know what's going on. do you? of course you don't. if you think you do, maybe you didn't get far enough into the mystery to be of interest to me.

my mother became vacuous, imploding and ending up as a complete nothing. my stepfather sucked all the life out of her. no, that's not fair to her, it was her that chose to leak her life out of her buttocks and collapse in on herself. the thing is, how many free women have you ever met? me? i'm in prison.

i like to think of opening sentences to great novels. but i don't have the patience to write a great novel. except my life, my life is my novel. here's one: it was always midnight. that novel is about someone in a dark place, right? you know right away. maybe you know the whole novel in the sentence, maybe that's why i don't have to write it. then how about, i live where the river bends. that one is about change, right? turning a corner, after facing an immovable object. or, the struggles of the living, that's what makes us heroes. that story would be about some sort of creative endeavor, creating a farm, a business, a family.

sometimes i like to think in titles: entitlement or freedom? i like that one. and women are another country, that's another good one.