“Emerson [College] had a library, and I was always in the library.  And in the library, I don’t know what you [referring to David Lipsky] do, but it’s mostly just kind of wandering around.  And I’d started in the last year, I’d probably started two different fairly long stories, both of which were just not working.

“And this was of course at a time when I’d really kind of given up.  I wasn’t even that upset about not writing anymore. …. And I decided that maybe being really sad, and really sort of directionless, wasn’t just that I was fucked up.  Maybe there was, maybe it was interesting in a way.  …. I just had so many friends, who went through terrible times exactly when I did.  In so many various different ways. …. Just the very air seemed sad, and kind of jagged.”