When

can I stop making up for the deficit? 

The more you can feel

... the more you are inclined to? This morning I had the strangest dreams of being attacked for who I am, for my neediness, and my endless array of intimacies and attachments. Sometimes what I have in my pocket is a chasm and an urgent need to be soothed. 

on tattoos and piercings

... it's so that I can be as scarred and beautiful on the outside as I am on the inside.

A little piece of grief

It's a fairly embarrassing thing to sometimes get drunk and cry. But I guess it shows that deep down somewhere all that grief hasn't yet gone away. I just don't let myself indulge in it at all, if I can help it. But today the tone of your voice, caring, concerned, felt like one more of those things that tips the scale toward life being a fantastically wonderful place and well worth living. Like the time when, speaking candidly about the abject misery that I once felt, my friend, sitting next to me, shot out an arm and gave my shoulder a quick squeeze, and said "that's awful." Times like these I feel as though I can break off a piece of my enormous grief and give it to a friend to hold. And I walk away feeling enveloped in warmth knowing I don't have to carry it alone.