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Delicate Business

One of my patients recently informed me that she had decided to charge for sex. After many affairs with men who had proven untrustworthy, she was abandoning her search for a genuine relationship.

Sunbeams

Rather than earn money, it was Thoreau’s idea to reduce his wants so that he would not need to buy anything. As he went around town preaching this ingenious idea, the shopkeepers of Concord hoped he would drop dead.

Richard Armour

Poor And Poorer

Growing Up In The Projects

The endless rows of cramped units were designed to house the maximum number of people in the smallest, most underdeveloped side of town. Most families were black. There were only two categories — the poor but not yet without hope, and the poor without any hope.

Money

Lunch money, Las Vegas, art for the people

Crisis

Living Simply

At fifty-five, I look back on a life so complicated that had I set out to make things hard for myself, I couldn’t have done a better job.

A Child’s Christmas On State Street

Somehow the knowledge of his identity passed through to me in the moment I stood there locked to him. It passed through his knuckles and into my skin. It burned out at me through his eyes.

Bodies

I fell in love and then I went shopping for groceries. We were out of everything. There was milk and cold cereal. Bread. Boring.

Who Sees What

One morning I came upon him in one of the more remote parts of the park. He’d spread his sleeping bag out smoothly, and he was about to get inside. He was wearing his knitted cap. I approached him from behind, and hoped he didn’t see me seeing him. Going to bed is not supposed to happen in broad daylight in front of strangers.

Homelessness

A huge beach umbrella, a Methodist church parking lot, a fire hydrant