night is another thing

"It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing."
--Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

and so I become a homeowner

The architect's vision of my new townhouse, done in May. Hooray! Renter no more!

freaks

" ... we have that word normal and we can say we are normal because a psychological, sexual, or spiritual abnormality can -- with a little luck -- be safely hidden from the rest of the world. But if you are less than three feet tall, you have to deal with that fact every second of every day of your life. And everyone witnesses your effort. You go into a bar and you can't get up onto a stool. You whistle down a taxi and you can't open the door. If you're a lady with a beard, every face you meet is a mirror to give you back the disgust and horror and unreasonableness of your predicament. No matter which corner you turn on which street in which city in the world, you can expect to meet the mirror. And I suppose I have never been able to forgive myself the grotesqueries and aberrations I am able to hide with such impunity in my own life. It was a painful and wondrous moment of self-knowledge, one I might never have had if I had not taken the bike on the road, looking for something I knew I'd recognize only when I saw it, looking for the limit -- ultimately, looking for the edge."
-- Harry Crews, Introduction to A Harry Crews Reader