I bought a sack of Red Wrigglers and they arrived on my porch yesterday.

Here's how it's supposed to work: I give them my vegetal table scraps, they eat them and shit agricultural gold.

I'll let you know how it goes.

November 2013 I became a gardener.

By January 2014 I will be a goddamn farmer.

In 1978 our Christmas tree made the Charlie Brown Christmas tree look like the one in Rockefeller Center.

I'm not sure it wasn't actually a branch.

It is the only tree we ever talk about.

It always delivers – we laugh and joke each time about how we kept spinning it looking for its "good side."

Good side? It was barely three-dimensional.

What a gift that scrawny little guy gave us.

I am composing this missive in my head while at the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall.

An elderly Chinese man has his elbow buried in between my spine and scapula.

He is using a level of force usually reserved for extracting information.

He says: "How about this?"

And now, my right shoulder and his right shoulder carry the same mark.

Seen or unseen, he's right there.

From here – 'til the end of my road – at every pool, beach, shirtless work-out – the old man is doing his best to make me look cool.

I am a crier. It's just the truth, what can I say?

As such, I have to watch The X-Factor in private.

I realize they are just shilling for Tide, condoms, Toyota and whatever else.

But when the coaches offer a psychological disposition of support – frankly I don't give a shit if it's fake – I always bite.

Belief in another – support of someone's hopes – vocalizing the notion "I believe in you" simply touches me in some indefensible place.

I may not be the luckiest person who ever lived, but I have extreme good fortune.

There are many many problems I do not have.

My plane is leaving soon to return me safely home.

At different times, I have lived precariously balanced.

My loved ones kept me upright.

I am on more solid footing now.

More often than not, I trip into great surprises – seeing wondrous, beautiful things and meeting curious people.

It is a lovely planet.

When I was very young, I didn't like onions.

I think it was that my taste buds were still so new.

Everything tasted so precisely, vibrantly, purely what it was.

I now like jalapenos on everything.

The artist has an audience.

In that relationship, a person can delight, antagonize, soothe or jolt another.

There you will find a moment of some consequence between two people.

It is a beautiful thing.

My mom is a successful and brilliant poet.

Before other people wrote blurbs on the back of her books and gave her awards and spent money to own her writing, she woke at 4:30 in the morning, sat at the kitchen table and wrote – every day – before kids, work and a million other demands would claim her attention.

I am a slow learner.

Impatience and haste have cost me a lot.

But, against all my instincts, I have decided against rushing to any conclusions.

Things break apart – I rack 'em up– and start again.

The New York Times and I have a mixed relationship.

Without meaningful argument, consistently high levels of thoughtful, careful writing land on my porch every Sunday.

But I can't help but feel it is saying,

"You are smart for reading this, but not as smart as I am for writing it."