Mostly it sucked because there had been a moment in my life, I suppose as a younger person, when I knew that I aspired to be a writer. This is not the same as feeling at home writing, or feeling the need, the compulsion, to write, which I also felt. But there was this moment when I spied an image of myself as a writer, whole and intact and accomplished, and recognized that image as me—as who I needed to be in order to be me. As to the question of exactly what that image looked like, I really do think it involved coming home to Milwaukee and reading at Harry Schwartz, and my parents there proud, and the teachers who supported me and cared for me and encouraged me when I was completely and utterly alienated from my peers being there, and then maybe some of those peers as well, and me harboring no ill will toward them but instead being very charitable and forgiving in my success. And instead you find yourself in this beat-up old building in the middle of nowhere Los Angeles with no heat and holes in the walls and cracks in the windowpanes, teaching two days a week at a community college in Orange County and the rest of the time writing less to accomplish something than to avoid failing at it, and you see that image fading, and as it does being alive starts to feel haphazard and purposeless, not like destiny but like some unfortunate accident that has befallen you for no good reason at all.