An Agony. The Exit Like The Entrance

But That Inadequacy, Or Feeling Of Inadequacy, Never Really Goes Away. You Just Have To Trudge Ahead In The Rain, Regardless.

Start Dating Someone Who Is Funny, Someone Who Has What In High School You Called A "really Great Sense Of Humor" And What Now Your Creative Writing Class Calls "self-contempt Giving Rise To Comic Form." Write Down All Of His Jokes, But Don't Tell Him You Are Doing This. Make Up Anagrams Of His Old Girlfriend's Name And Name All Of Your Socially Handicapped Characters With Them. Tell Him His Old Girlfriend Is In All Of Your Stories And Then Watch How Funny He Can Be, See What A Really Great Sense Of Humor He Can Have.

I Wondered About The Half-life Of Regret.

An Author's Life Is Different, Complex, And Ongoing, While A Character's Remains Frozen In One Little Story.

I Missed Him. Love, I Realized, Was Something Your Spine Memorized. There Was Nothing You Could Do About That.