Packed into the kilogram or so of neural wetware between the ears is everything we know: a compendium of useful and trivial facts about the world, the history of our lives, plus every skill we've ever learned, from riding a bike to persuading a loved one to take out the trash. Memories make each of us unique, and they give continuity to our lives.

My book's on eBay. eBay? Why? I don't get it. Is somebody going to become interested in my book (which would be almost like a miracle) and then think I know, I'll look for it on eBay. The world makes absolutely no sense to me.

Bloomberg's on a diet. Yes to broccoli? No to hamburgers? He lives in New York City and he's off Chinese food? Mike, bro, you're mayor; eat whatever the hell you like.

I'm doing a reading in Sacramento on 20 September 2005. It's part of La Raza Bookstore's Third  Tuesday Poetry Series, and it starts at 8:00 p.m.

The U.S. government is reviewing 72,000 cases in which veterans have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, claiming that misdiagnosis and fraud have inflated the numbers. Outraged vets say the plan is a callous attempt to cut the costs of an increasingly expensive war.

In the world as Bunnatine Greenhouse sees it, people do the right thing. They stand up for the greater good and they speak up when things go wrong

It’s post-screening, and I’m over by the buffet table, eating the free food, when a young lady who works for KVPT comes up and starts talking about how much she liked my reading, Finally, I think, here’s a poetry groupie. I knew writing poems was going to pay off eventually.

Now, I figured that they were hunting high and low for Fresno writers if they had somehow managed to track me down, me with my one little book that barely sold before it stopped selling at all.

So I'm sitting here at the local Starbucks (they have a T-Mobile Hotspot; get off my back), listening to some music on my iBook and trying to get some writing done, when it occurred to me that it had been a while since I listed the songs that currently make up, "Really Sad Fiction-Writing Songs," the playlist I listen to when I'm trying to write. Here they are, ordered by play count.

The president departed Tuesday for his longest stretch yet away from
the White House, arriving at his Crawford ranch in the evening to clear
brush, visit with family and friends, and tend to some
outside-the-Beltway politics. By historical standards, it is the
longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years.