I work in the most non-Communist job. I work for 'Martha Stewart Living.'

The year the bus drivers went on strike in Pittsburgh, I was twenty-three and living on the edge of the city in a neighborhood that was on the verge of becoming a ghetto. I had just been fired from a good job as a cartographer in a design studio where I had worked for about four months.

I take pride in taking care of all the housework so that my wife, who works as a designer for Martha Stewart, won't need to sacrifice any of her leisure time when she gets home.

We were poor, my mother and I, living in a world of doom and gloom, pessimism and bitterness, where storms raged and wolves scratched at the door.

I wake when my wife wakes, at 7:30 A.M. I'd like to sleep longer, but she has to go off to work, and I'd be plagued with guilt.

I was born in Brooklyn and raised in Pittsburgh. I've never been to Iran, I don't speak the language, and, probably most important of all, my Iranian father left home when I was nine months old. That's the extent of my connection to Iran.