I am just so happy to have a Wikipedia entry that I didn't write myself. Does it really say that? I have to go look at it.

Wow, it really does say that. The Church of Scientology is prominently featured. I am not married. I do not belong to the Church of Scientology. I just put Scientology down once on my Myspace page because I saw it on the pull-down menu and thought it was funny. I also also put down married because I told my boyfriend I wanted to be Myspace Married, which is different than being legally married but still sort of romantic.

Oh my. Hello, SKC. I'm so pleased you're writing about my story. I can't give you any answers, exactly, because I don't believe there are answers in literature, just different ways of framing the questions. So here are a few questions: are you sure Kim is the one (or the only one) doing the suppression and rejection? What if the cavemen are all actually female? Is her devotion to order only about her relationship with her boyfriend? Does this help? Probably not. One thing I can say for sure: the cavemen represent exactly what you think cavemen would represent: cavemen.

Oy. I think things like this happen to almost everyone at one time or another, MaGillacuddy, and it’s never easy. I think what it means is this: people change. They may not change when you want them to or in the way you want, but they do change, and somehow you’ve evolved so that you don’t need so much shitty meanness in your life. That’s fantastic! Congratulations! I’m sure this took considerable thought and struggle on your part and you deserve a lot of credit. Now, here’s the thing: you’ve changed but your friend hasn’t. Really, when you think about it, why would she? It would be a freakish coincidence if she happened to snap out of her crap attitude at the same time you did. So even though I hate being on the side of assholes, I have a smidge of sympathy for your friend in this situation, MaGillacuddy. Here’s the thing: I would guess you’ve been getting something out of this friendship for all this time, even if your friend is a big fat jerk. There can be benefits to hanging out with mean people. It can be rather great to have a fierce person in your corner, who spews all the anger you're too timid or lazy to vent yourself, who scares away the faint-hearted and boring creatures you'd prefer not to deal with. But if you grow out of it, you have a problem: now you're stuck with this person who is used to being loved by you for her ferocity, and suddenly you're turning around and telling her she’s hurtful and demeaning. So indulge me for a minute and look at it from her point of view: she’s acting the same way she always has, a way that’s always seemed to be okay by you, and suddenly you’re enraged—but as far as she’s concerned, she’s just being herself. She’s probably hurt and confused, and if she’s an embattled person to begin with, that’s not going to make her act any nicer. Quite the opposite.

She might change someday too, who knows? One thing is for sure though, she’ll do it on her own schedule. But until then, at least she can still be fun at times, and it’s sweet of her to say she loves you, and I’m sure she wouldn’t be your friend if you didn’t have something worthwhile together. You know, it’s hard for a friendship to survive a change like this—you are essentially saying you’re not sure you like her anymore—but even if your friend doesn’t change, the nature of your friendship can. Unless she’s hurtful and demeaning to you—in which case I hope you draw the line and tell her it's not allowed (do it whenever you're ready but tell her)—maybe she’s just a friend with the flaw of bitchiness, which is on par with, let’s say, stupidity, weird relationship issues, over-drunkenness, and bad art making—it’s not fun, but maybe it’s not a fatal flaw.

Hi Elizabeth. The neediness and quirks arise as I write or re-write, I find, as do the awkward or telling moments. I sort of love those moments in real life and it's a good thing too, because if I didn't love awkward moments I would be screwed (I strive to be the first to arrive at parties). It's hard for me to get a story going from a detail. I usually start with some sort of conflict between two or more characters, then allow the characters to interact with one another. Isn't that a boring answer? And yet it usually turns into some sort of story, but not always. I find a story sort of sucks up telling details and moment and metaphors almost by accident, and in a way it helps not to try too hard to be smart. I will rewrite for years, but usually I'm trying to get the rhythm right.

You are, you are a failure. Shame on you, Sigh! Go out and buy some hardbacks. It's a bad, selfish thing to want people to read your fiction while not reading anyone else's fiction yourself. You can't be in the world of books unless you're in the world of books. Also, books are wonderful and will change your life, including the new ones, though sometimes the new ones haven't quite found their place in the world yet so you have to sift through them a bit to find the ones you like the most. I'm not sure I've found anything that's pure, unadulterated good, though you can try Denis Johnson's long story Train Dreams, in the 2003 O.Henry anthology (though that's slightly outside your window), and Donald Antrim's essay I Bought a Bed in many anthologies and his book Afterlife. For extremely enjoyable and delightful but perhaps a little less than absolutely perfect, you could also sample from this varied lot: Like You'd Understand, Anyway, by Jim Shepherd, Milk, by Darcey Steinke, Twin Study, by Stacey Richter (sorry), The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, The Last Novel, by David Markson, Magic for Beginners, by Kelly Link, and Drop City, by T.C. Boyle.

Liam, Liam. Once I stole some of my ancient grandmother's Provigil, a stimulant prescribed to her when she was 99 years of age because she was sleeping 20 hours I day. I believe this is a banned substance in cycling, so yes, I have taken performance enhancing drugs. I'm not sure how feeling dizzy, wired, and tired all at the same time can enhance performance, but we have to go with the anti-doping committee's recommendation, so there it is.

Yes.

Ah, so true. Zombie?

Uh, no. I don't know how to do that. Wait, I just asked someone. Okay, I see. I can check with my internet host and find out what city people are writing from, though apparently it's not always that precise, i.e. my own IP address says Phoenix even though I'm in Tucson. So even if I checked the IP address, I would only have a vague sense that certain pseudonyms might belong to the same person--which is fine, NonAnon. You can ask as many questions as you want. It's a big enough world that I doubt I could pin you down even if I knew your city. Do you think all the questions are from, like, two people I went to grade school with? That would be a little disheartening.

I do know who a few questioners are because I either know them in real life or they're pen pals who write me additional emails on the side (stretching the definition of "knowing" here). There are a lot of questions from Wag (who appears as some variation of Wag), my friend Chris, who in real life was trying to help me get my roof to drain, which is why there's a whole conversation below about how to get a roof to drain. Obviously I know who that is. Anyway, Non, to answer your question: I don't check the IP addresses, I don't know how, and I don't plan to start. Does this mean you have some sort of racy question you want to ask?

I eat a lot of macadamia nuts and often think of Rabbit at Rest wherein Harry Angstrom dies from, I kid you not, eating too many macadamia nuts. For breakfast I eat eggs, bacon, yogurt, fruit, cheese, and sometimes oatmeal because I'm a cheater. In general, I eat a lot of meat and vegetables and nuts and stevia. I eat fruit but I don't eat a lot of bananas. The reason I've adopted this diet is because (and again, I kid you not) people who don't eat processed food (flour, sugar, juice, Hot Pockets) seem not to get cancer, heart disease, diabetes, cavities, and a host of other ailments, some of which have been bothering me. So, essentially I'm aiming for a hunter-gatherer diet but with some dairy because I'm too lazy to do it without dairy.

I'm not fuzzy without carbs, but I had to adjust to having less of them. At first I was fuzzy and really hungry, but now in general I'm almost never feel as hungry as I used to when I ate more carbs. Still, it's a hard diet to get used to and to stick with, even for me--and I feel sick when I eat sugar.