Since each of us was several, there was already quite a crowd

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I have not yet turned my back on impractical pursuits and the primacy of process over outcome.  But it seems more important to try to focus on getting just the right amount milk in the bowl so it is proportionate to the volume of cereal.  (Imagine every bowl of cereal consumed in this life set out in a room, staged six feet apart from another in a grid.)

Our moods do not believe in one another, and it is hard to tell whether that is a feature of moods or a personal shortcoming.  Outside it is the kind of August rainstorm that traumatizes pets and shears odd weak or rotten limbs from the biggest trees.  Inside - in this room at least- the ghosts are silently pirouetting, with the occasional jete’. Inside - in this body at least - the diastolic and systolic are following the lead of the shambolic.

I and I, the man explained.

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