“I think I have a talent for living. Perhaps I’m trying to make the most of something small for want of something better, but I think a true talent for living has the quality of creation, and if that’s the talent I was meant to have, I’m awfully glad I have it. I’d rather live a first-rate life than paint a second-rate picture.” -Samuel Taylor, Sabrina Fair

I read this line and the letters are clothes warm from the dryer, clinging and comforting: You can have a first-rate life. Then they are little jurors, pointing their serifs at me, with inquiry and suspicion: Why can’t you paint a second-rate picture? Then they are little forks in the road, poking and insisting, You can only do one.

If you have a career, a relationship, travel – there’s no time for anything else. If you write, perform, create – there’s no money for anything else. So I’m working part-time and writing part-time and the whole thing is a very tall and poorly constructed wedding cake with too many layers – leaning this way and that. How can I keep it together. Who’s going to eat it. I’m not even married.

Just last night, on a family video, I saw this fiendish red-faced red-headed boy, flailing a naked Barbie by the hair. He was intimate with his imagination. Barbie was an actress in his film, a backup singer in his concert, a character in his novel. He made it look so easy. I wanted to be him again.