We're All Immortal Until We Die.

She Has Her Own Glamour, Willy Lad. All Poets Do, All The Bards And Artists, All The Musicians Who Truly Take The Music Into Their Own Hearts. They All Straddle The Border Of Faerie, And They See Into Both Worlds. Not Dependably Into Either, Perhaps, But That Uncertainty Keeps Them Honest And At A Distance.

Sometimes, She Reflected, She Dressed For Courage, Sometimes For Success, And Sometimes For The Consolation Of Knowing That Whatever Else Went Wrong, At Least She Liked Her Clothes.

It Occurs To Me To Wonder: Do I Believe In Any God, Or Even Positively Not Believe, As James Does? I Believe In Systems And Methods. I Believe In The Beauties Of Philosophy And Poetry. I Believe That The Work We Do And Leave Behind Us Is Our Afterlife; And I Believe That History Lies, But Sometimes So Well That I Can't Bring Myself To Resent It. I Believe That Truth Is Beauty, But Not, I'm Afraid, The Reverse. It Doesn't Seem Sufficient To Sustain One In Life's Rigorous Moments. Perhaps I Shall Embrace Islam. Its Standards For Poetry Seem Very High.

We're All Immortal Until We Die.

Here's What I Think I'm Having Trouble With: This Is What Happiness Is. When I Was A Kid, I Thought I'd Just Get Happier And Happier As I Got Older, And Have More Things To Be Happy About. I Based This Theory On Observation Of Select Adults. The Problem With My Results Is That I Couldn't Tell The Difference Then Between Happy And Fake-happy. Now I Know You Pretend To Be Just Frigging Ecstatic Over Everything, Maybe Because You're So Glad It's Not Worse.