It's In Being Read That A Book

And I Ask Myself What It Is About Me That Makes This Wonderful, Beautiful Woman Return. Is It Because I'm Pathetic, Helpless In My Current State, Completely Dependent On Her? Or Is It My Sense Of Humour, My Willingness To Tease Her, To Joke My Way Into Painful, Secret Places? Do I Help Her Understand Herself? Do I Make Her Happy? Do I Do Something For Her That Her Husband And Son Can't Do? Has She Fallen In Love With Me? As The Days Pass And I Continue To Heal, My Body Knitting Itself Back Together, I Begin To Allow Myself To Think That She Has.

Yes, Manila Had Its Slums; One Saw Them On The Drive From The Airport: Vast Districts Of Men In Dirty White Undershirts Lounging Idly In Front Of Auto-repair Shops - Like A Poorer Version Of The 1950s America Depicted In Such Films As Grease.

Religion Is Not Something I Like To Talk About Publicly. One Reason Is The Politics, But Also I Think Spirituality Is Deeply Personal.

All Over The World, The Nativist Perspective Is Being Privileged Over Those Who Are More Recent Arrivals.

In Some Contexts In Pakistan Maybe A Beard Is Negative. It Depends. And In Some Contexts In America Maybe A Beard Is Positive. I Think There's Certainly Lots Of Hipster Communities Where Having A Beard Makes Me Look A Little Bit Less Like A, You Know, Middle-aged Fuddy-duddy. And There's Some Places In Pakistan Where Having A Beard, You Know, Certain Corporate Contexts, Certain Social Contexts, Where It's Not An Advantage To Have A Beard.