He said: "The only thing better than sex is a hot car. I love the feel of fast acceleration; the smell of burnt oil; the blur of traffic as I pass. American used to be, when I was a teen, more open with less traffic and more open road. I loved reading about the Beats and their boozey treks to the West Coast and back, driving fast, picking up hitch hikers, be wreckless. I used to hang out at "underground" races that took place late at night on some empty road somewhere outside of town. My breathing gets short just thinking about it. Our cars were our identity. The kind of car you drove meant something to anyone who knew the code. I was my Mustang. It was what my friends knew about me. I drove a hot Mustang. End of story."

Stumble It!

She said: "When I think of the memories I cherish, I think of the neighborhood I lived in when I was in School in New York. This was an old, run down, and, yes, sometimes dangerous part of the city, but there were a lot of young people, like me, lots of small cafes and lots of places to go. I had lots of friends then. We were all young, and hungry for experiences. There were many of us, like myself, who were from the midwest or of the eastern seaboard and this was our first time in the "big city". Oh, my, but it was fun. I'll never laugh like I did when I was 20. I'll never dance again like I did then, too. There seemed to be music everywhere then. We didn't really want anything then, except to be free to be young and to do what we wanted to do with friends that we wanted to be friends with and to go to places that we wanted to go to. Oh, it was a wonderful time. It was a wonderful time to be alive!"

Stumble It!

She said: "The Sun was a long time in finding us. The days had been wet with fog and rain and there was a chill in the air that stayed with you for a few minutes after you can in doors. We had been waiting for the Sun for a long time. We had been waiting and we knew that eventually the tides would turn and there would be Spring coming. We could almost feel it in our bodies. We had to be still and we had to be patient and we kept our eyes on the fog and on the rain, waiting for the time when the Sun would appear to us and signal a new season in which to live."

Stumble It!

He said: "Well, America was different back then. First of all, there weren't so many cars, and there weren't so many highways and it was a long way between here and Texas. And the cars didn't have A.C., so when it was hot, all you could do was open the windows and Mom's hair would get messed up then. There weren't any seat belts and our parents didn't think anything of sticking the kids in the back of the station wagon to play, until we got too loud or someone started a fight. It took 5 whole days to get there, then 5 whole days to get back. We slept in motel rooms along the way and Dad pulled into one only when it got too dark to see. We ate soggy sandwiches that Mom somehow made and we just watched the South roll by us, state by state. There was still cotton in the South then and there was still mostly black folk to pick it. It seems now like another planet, and in many ways it was."

Stumble It!

She said: "They say that the water is gonna come; that the water is gonna rise, but what they don't say is that this won't be the first time. Children, read your bible! It's in there. God made the water come once before; at least one time before. You should know that. God made the water come down and take away everything on the earth except for those things that made it to the boat. Those things endured and after the water went down, they came back to earth and took it over and that's when God gave us human animals another chance, and although God gave his word that he wouldn't do that again, I guess he could always change his mind. Come on now, he's God for a reason! So, children, prepare yourself for the water. They say the water is going to come again. This time, you'd best be ready."

Stumble It!

He said: "I had a cousin named Charles but called Chuck. It wasn't a very Jewish name, but then it wasn't a time to have a Jewish name. Anyway, he drowned at the New Jersey shore in 1956 at the age of 6. His mother told him to go and wash his hands before getting an ice cream and a freak wave came and took him away. When my mother got the news, she screamed and then fainted. I was 7 when this happened. We were living in Germany after the war. Chuck was always, from then on, the missing person at family reunions. He was there, but he was not. The grown ups talked about him in whispers. He was the only family member to drown and, of course, he was so young and being "taken" at such a young age was awful, really awful. Anyway, the years went on and Chuck continues to be the drowned cousin. I only have very dim pictures of him in my head because I didn't know him very well. The thing that really got me, though, was the fact that he never got older. He was always a child. I'm now over 60 years old, but Chuck, or Charles, is still only 6 and he is still just trying to wash the sand off of his hands at the beach."

Stumble It!

She said: "Let's just agree that we don't agree, shall we? Let's just admit that we can't see the forest for the trees and that there isn't even the slightest chance that we will find common ground. Let's admit that we are blinded by the light and that we will some how find a way to come together and still be friends. Let's write this down in a letter and mail it to each other. Let's not fight about the details. Let's just get this over with."

Stumble It!

He said: "I am a writer. That is to say, I write. I write for a living and I write for fun. Sometimes they both happen together, the living and the fun. I don't ever remember a life that didn't involve, for me, the need to write it all down. My entire life is a text. Words come to me wherever I am: in the street, on a train, in the bath, while I'm jogging. The trick, really, is making the effort to get all of the words together in one place, whether on a piece of paper or jotted down on my palm. The words want to be found and put to good use. I am lucky, because I have a muse and I have a helper that I do not see but who is always there to guide me in putting the words together. I don't know how this invisible force, if I can call it a force, finds me, but when it is time to turn the words into a narrative or a poem or whatever, this force, or power, is there for me. Every time. Always. Always my hand is guided."

Stumble It!

He said: "I wish that I knew a way to make it better, but I don't. I wish that the pain will lessen, but I know that it won't. I wish that every day could be another in a long chain of wonderful days and that there will be warmth and there will be joy and there will be expectations that are filled. I wish that I knew what to say, but I don't. And I wish that I knew how to say it, but I don't. It all comes down to one thing in the end and that is that whatever you live is life."

Stumble It!

She said: "We waited a long time for the Winter to be over. It is hard for the flowers and hard for the plants that feed us in the cold months of Winter. Each year we wait for the signs and when we see them, we prepare a celebration. We celebrate the return of the sun and the return of the things that grow on the ground, the things that nourish us and the things that sustain us for another year. Our children can become strong now that the sun is here to warm us. We, as a people, can become strong again. We can rejoice in our work, the work of women on this earth, for we are what sustains our people, the women of the valley and the women of the Sun."

Stumble It!

He said: " Wow! I am blown away! This is just SO HUGE! I don't know why I didn't see this a long time ago, but I didn't, but now it all comes together and the results are staggering. Here is what I'm so excited about: All time is happening AT THE SAME TIME. Our lives are not linear. There is no 'Beginning" and there is no 'End'. It's all happening around us and through us. It is about us in all time and in every place we know. We are both young and old at the same time. We are both here and there at the same time. Everything is connected to everything to form a perfect universe of ideas and sensations and calculations. And, it's all so convenient. If you want a better life, just go the time where that is a possibility and it will happen for you. Want a different life? It is there, right in front of you. All you have to do is move your physical body into that time space and it happens. You are, after all, a part of everything that has ever happened and you are the force that keeps it moving and keeps it evolving. I have to go now. Someone is calling me."

Stumble It!

She said: "Oh, it was a wild ride, let me tell you. You couldn't see the road for all of the snow coming down on us. My hands got so stiff from grabbing the steering wheel that I didn't ever think I would ever get them to straighten out again. There were no lights on the road and every once in a while some car would fly past us driving crazy into the night. I could follow the tail lights for awhile, but then they would disappear and we be in the snowy dark again. We finally traded places and he drove for awhile, but I didn't get to rest for one second. I was sure we were going to die up there in the snow storm and I had to stay alert so that we wouldn't. Then, don't you know, we hit something and I screamed. We stopped and looked around for an animal or something, but we didn't see anything but lots of snow and some ice. We were coming down off the mountain then, so he looked at me and smiles that smile he has and said 'we musta hit a speed hump'. He's a funny guy but sometimes, I swear, I could kill him."

Stumble It!