this one-way rocket to Death in Adulthood" "Normal Time" in New California Writing

The First Amendment has the same role in my life as a citizen and a writer as the sun has in our ecosystem,

There's nothing more embarrassing than to have earned the disfavor of a perceptive animal.

It is always so simple, and so complicating, to accept an apology.

The First Amendment has the same role in my life as a citizen and a writer as the sun has in our ecosystem.

[A]dventures befall the unadventurous as readily, if not as frequently, as the bold. Adventures are a logical and reliable result - and have been since at least the time of Odysseus - of the fatal act of leaving one's home, or trying to return to it again. All adventures happen in that damned and magical space, wherever it may be found or chanced upon, which least resembles one's home. As soon as you have crossed your doorstep or the county line, into that place where the structures, laws, and conventions of your upbringing no longer apply, where the support and approval (but also the disapproval and repression) of your family and neighbors are not to be had: then you have entered into adventure, a place of sorrow, marvels, and regret.