A Box of Matches

I would like to visit the factory that makes train horns, and ask them how they are able to arrive at that chord of eternal mournfulness. Is it deliberately sad? Are the horns saying, Be careful, stay away from this train or it will run you over and then people will grieve, and their grief will be as the inconsolable wail of this horn through the night? The out-of-tuneness of the triad is part of its beauty.

You’ve got to get cold to get warm,” Phoebe said. Now that is the truth. That is so true about so many things. You learn it first with sheets and blankets: that the initial touch of the smooth sheets will send you shivering, but their warming works fast, and you must experience the discomfort to find the later contentment. It’s true with money and love, too. You’ve got to save to have something to spend. Think of how hard it is to ask out a person you like. In my case, Claire asked me to go on a date to the cash machine, so I didn’t actually have to ask her. Still, her lips were cold, but her tongue was warm.

Why are things beautiful? I don´t know. That´s a good question. Isn´t it pleasing when you ask a question of a person, a teacher, or a speaker, and he or she says, That´s a good question? Don´t you feel good when that happens?

The nice thing about putting on your glasses in the dark is that you know you could see better if it were light, but since it is dark the glasses make no difference at all.

You can feel strange worries about the nature of consciousness when you try to imagine what a duck is thinking about all night closed up in a doghouse with a bowl of slowly freezing water and some food pellets, with a screen door over the opening to keep out coyotes and a blanket over the screen door.

Three kinds of donut—cinnamon, plain, and white powder that makes you cough—were all in the same box, all showing through the plastic window like the mailing address to a world in which everyone spoke with his mouth full.

This Home Depot employs several very small people, if I’m not mistaken, and they’re usually the most knowledgeable. Go right for the bearded dwarf with the tool belt if you want the best advice.

I’m burning a bunch of little pinecones now that I gathered on the walk. One of the joys of life, I think, is trying to decipher the name on a gravestone as it is transmitted through the dense foliage of blue-green gravestone lichen. Some people clean off the grave-growths with chemicals and wire brushes, a mistake.

I went with her to the dentist when she had her wisdom teeth out. Afterward she slept curled for a long time, a small beautiful person; there on her desk in a glass of water were the two enormous teeth. They were like the femurs of brontosauri. How those giant teeth could have fit into her head I don’t know.

For some years I relied on suicidal thoughts to help me go to sleep.