When The Beer Is Gone, So Are

The Year I Began To Say Vahz Instead Of Vase, A Man I Barely Knew Nearly Accidentally Killed Me.

Obviously, In Journalism, You're Confined To What Happens. And The Tendency To Embellish, To Mythologize, It's In Us. It Makes Things More Interesting, A Closer Call. But Journalism Taught Me How To Write A Sentence That Would Make Someone Want To Read The Next One.

I Think Of The Chimp, The One With The Talking Hands. In The Course Of The Experiment, That Chimp Had A Baby. Imagine How Her Trainers Must Have Thrilled When The Mother, Without Prompting, Began To Sign Her Newborn. Baby, Drink Milk. Baby, Play Ball. And When The Baby Died, The Mother Stood Over The Body, Her Wrinkled Hands Moving With Animal Grace, Forming Again And Again The Words: Baby, Come Hug, Baby Come Hug, Fluent Now In The Language Of Grief.

The Other Day I Was Playing Scrabble. I Saw That I Could Close The Space In D-e- -y. I Had An N And An F. Which Do You Think I Chose? What Was The Word I Made?

I Am Not Quite Myself, I Think.but Who Here Is Quite Himself? And Yet There Is A Way In Which We Are All More Ourselves Than Ever, I Suppose.