"Let me live before I die. By Wednesday we are on the George Lopez television show in Burbank."

"Yakkety-yak, thud."

"Not for the first time I wrap a dying pelican in large bath towels and carry it to the hotel reception. They are not remotely interested, but they wryly entertain me when I tell them that I will pay whatever it takes to have this pelican gently relieved of its painful life. They assure me that it will be taken to a…

"Suddenly my life jumps, and the past is not me. The prevalent complaint of boredom subsides as whatever is sought is found."

"Towards the end of the day I sit fully clothed at the rooftop pool and I am submerged in an oh so familiar sadness."

"As always, I am detached, swamped in love, wondering how I could possibly repay it."

"'Who does he thank he is? Elvis Presleh?' says a Smokey the Bear Keystone Cop, as he gives me the glare of death."

"This moorland remains unchanged for centuries and it extends no kindness, for why should it?"

"An overstuffed confectioner's shop stands alone on a flattened street awaiting the council chop, and the part-eaten retainer behind the counter looks relieved to finally be on his way out of the new depersonalized world. I walk to the shop every day to buy things that I don't need, because I want the owner to still…

"Unfathomably, I had several cupcake grapples in this year of 1973, with no experience worth repeating, yet somehow having dropped myself further into each bungee jump than I thought allowable. Plunge or no plunge, girls remained mysteriously attracted to me, and I had no idea why, since although each fumbling foray…