So did u get your degree from Harvard?

Yep.

Did you use that in the social justices field?

Nope

Was there a lot of stress going from a top notch school to a low paying job?

Nah. I came from dirt and just returned to dirt.

Did it matter?

I think it works again' ya as much as it works for ya.

Can you tell us about your books?

Nah, but thanks for asking. I like being anonymous. I'm published in magazines every month and I take enough grief for that.

And are you single?

Yep...staying that way. I'm too busy to be partnered.

And I never had panic attacks before I started writing.

Don't shred! When you're ready to shred, that's when you submit. Another solid indicator is drooling. When I find myself drooling onto my lap, it's time to submit.

Oh, yes, Truman got to be their pet, their toy breed, but when he pooped on their white, white carpet, he was tossed.

And thanks for the congrats! It's mostly a lot of work: rewriting, rewriting, rewriting.

"When will the first be published?" people ask.

"When we're completely disgusted and quit," I answer.

"morbid obesity" is bad for all. When I was a kid, there was "the fat kid" in our school. THE fat kid. Now, every other kid is fat and most adults waddle hither, but not yon, for yon is too far for them to waddle. Some healthcare insiders have told me, off the record, that affordable healthcare is soon coming to an end, thus the healhcare that we can and MUST all afford is proactive and in part, pushing away the plate and walking yon.

Fitzgerald wrote, "The rich, they are different than us."

Or something like that. I should have googled it, but I'm juggling some tasks here.

And a beloved friend said, "I don't think the rich lack compassion. They lack understanding."

I think both of these are true. When I lived in Boston, like a Dickens' waif, I would pass restaurants where rich people ate and laughed and laughed and laughed. I saw them, but they didn't see me. Likewise, if I walk in the neighborhoods where rich people live in my town, I'll sometimes pass their parties and hear the clinking of their glasses and I understand that waifs don't get to clink glasses and tip their heads back and laugh. Someday, since I have 3 novels under contract and other books too, I might get invited to such parties as a curiosity, but that kind of curiosity isn't a kindness.

Thanks for asking. Curiosity is a kindness. My focus for a couple decades was social justice work. There's not much money in taking care of poor folks. Now I'm a freelance writer, thus the humble digs, but I dig humble digs too. Living in a multi-racial, working-class neighborhood feels like home, since my sibs and I slept 3 to a bed (and later, when we were richer, only 3 to a room).

I went to Harvard and was almost crushed twice, by the debt and by class. I'm just folk, even today. My nearest neighbors are a welder and a sweat shop seamtress who can afford her house because it's public housing. There are 4 races who live on my block. So, when I arrived at Harvard, it seemed a brave new world, that had such people in it, but the holidays are a reductive way to explain my experience there: my classmates would jet away to Prague or Thailand. I stayed and drank coffee with the security guards.

"You can afford to go," my classmates asserted. "You just choose to not go."

And that's what they thought they knew. Rather, that's the faity tale they told themselves so that they could sip coffee in Prague without a hitch.

I too wonder how many neocons even understand that this is the FIRST WAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY that we aren't financing. Beyond that, it's a war that came with tax breaks for Paris Hilton and her ilk.

We will pay and pay and pay. And then our grandchildren will pay. And their grandchildren.

...to play a tape warning me about the perils to "our Christian heritage."

"Do you support the war?" I interrupted her.

"I support the troops," she said.

"Who doesn't," I replied, "so saying you do means nothing. But do you support the war?"

"I support our president," she said.

"But as an alleged Christian," I asked, "how can you support a man who refuses to turn the other cheek?"

"We can't just let them kill us!" she said.

"Only if we were to follow the Christ's example. Only if we were to be Christians. There's no greater glory than martyrdom."

She sputtered and ended the conversation.

And especially this: "This generation doesn't do real sacrifice or even pay for our own wars. That's what grandkids are for!"

This war was brought to you by the party of alleged fiscal responsibility, low taxes, and Leaving No Kid Behind and they've guaranteed that millions of American Kids will be left behind as they pay the taxes this generation wasn't willing to pay.

True story: I once dated a guy who spent the whole night complaining about women and how unfair the world was for men. I was younger then and nodded and nodded. Now, I'd leave, which is what I'm going to do now. This thread has become unfun.

However, a closing thought: most modern people have no idea of how difficult life was just a bit back, when people's teeth rotted and they worked 16-hour days and they lived to be 50, if they were lucky. Most of us get to live a couple more decades, but life is still so short and I don't want to spend it nodding at someone or arguing with that someone who believes that theirs is the most important suffering and everyone must listen, again and again and again.