If I hadn�t stopped drinking, I guess in the literary world I�d be Charles Bukowski by now; because hell, drink *does* make me more prolific. I�ll usually have something more pit-wrenching and -stirring to say.

But I started realizing I wasn�t going to get hit on by anybody but men if I didn�t start taking more of an account as to how I looked. I saw a profligate man in mirrors, in pictures taken at Christmas parties. I read �Men�s Health� to learn the most obviously common sense things that should�ve been passed on to me had I a father who�d had no desire to be an intellectual while he was still here in Coastal Texas, who would stick around to tell me what women are really looking at in the first minute they see you.

In somewhat more athletic shape, feeling better about myself, I focus and wonder now on what kind of writer I�ll be.

(Probably the kind I haven�t even read yet.)

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