"There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, 'Morning, boys, how's the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, 'What the hell is water?'" -D.F.W., Commencement Speech, Kenyon College, May 21, 2005 * I had a dream that we went walking, David Foster Wallace and I In great detail we were talking The Pale King smi

Sun is up and the day goes right for me I'm moving up in a way that's rightfully Ringing out yeah, your day calls out to me I'm moving up, can't contain the light I see All around me the air sings infinity Chin is up and the scene is on to me Coffee cup and I'm sailing out to sea I'm moving up in a way that seems to be This is not a sob story. It's record keeping, I guess. Enough people had said, “You're a writer, why not write about it?” In most ways, I'd set out to

***Please be advised that the following post may contain descriptions of self-harm that may upset certain readers.*** On my ferry ride home, I’m lulled into sleepiness by the boat’s rocking over choppy waves. Thoughtlessly, I’ve smeared ink down the page of my book. A blurry line of indigo that extended from an underline I’d marked off in the first several pages of Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity. “It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life,” the wobbly unde

So it rained that day The day I gave it all away And I never thought it would When the morning looked so good Tickets were booked for California, I explained to my mother over the phone. I was calm. "But you two looked so good together," my mother sighed over the phone. "You agreed on so many things." I wasn't sure where to pick up from there. What made a difference, on the larger scale of things if we looked good with each other? Were we good for each other? Ultimat

It was a six hour time difference from New York to Barcelona, which made walking around in daytime oftentimes feel like a waking dream. Residents from South America or Australia had a harder time, wandering around the house somewhat dazed, nursing coffees. They would be back to normal, they said, in about a day. Even though I still hadn’t gotten used to how sleep worked yet, I woke at seven to beat the morning shower rush. I stood, brushing my teeth at the sink and stared int