My bitterness-- so for a moment, excuse me while I'm as bitter as I'm allowing myself to be.

When I was young, I got into the sort of altercations young troubled people get into that "almost killed somebody."

(Feel free to expand upon that vaguery yourself.)

When I was older, I got into the sort of altercations young troubled people put themselves into that "almost kill" their selves.

(Feel free to expand upon that vaguery yourself.)

As an adult, I wrote a bunch of fiction that I almost finished.

Feel free--

To some people, I remain forever in their eye as a figure of brutality-- an opponent in a rough town.

To some people, I remain forever in their eye as a figure of pity-- a broken thing to put back together. A patient.

To some people, I remain forever in their eye as something much more prosaic-- a failed writer.

Innumerable, incommunicable things make me up. We are community organisms. You and I are so much more beautiful and complex than we can ever say to each other.

My wife's love; the admiration of my peers; my self loathing; the political hatred of my environment; the way I weep when stories get to me; the way I stoically responded to my mother's cancer.

On the internet, I'm