"That sounds like a scream and nothing sounds like a scream but a scream"

- Boston Blackie

Simultaneously, equally, meaningful and meaningless.

I have a feeling that one day they'll enshrine me in a hall of fame and that they'll make a bust sculpture of me, but I don't want to get a head of myself.

I was waiting at an elevator, holding the book I had just started reading. It's widely considered to be one of the all-time great works in literature. Another man approached. He too stood and waited for the elevator. The elevator came and we got in. He glanced over at me, catching a glimpse of my book. He smiled, "How far have you gotten?" I shuffled through the book and separated the beginning up to page 16 from the rest of the 1,200 or so pages and held the book up for him to see. I could hear the tiniest of an admiring laugh rise up inside him. Just then the elevator opened and he said, "I envy you". We left the elevator. He went right and I went left without my having a chance to say a word to him.

After failing as a nano-technician because I was no good at small talk, I went into medicine. First, I was a dermatologist, but that didn't work out because I hated making rash decisions. Then I tried my hand at being an allergist, which flopped too because I bit off more than I could ahh ahh ah-coo. Moving away from medicine, I decided to try my luck in pro sports, becoming a professional bowler. This endeavor failed me as well, it was too sad, bowling is the only game where you actually seek despair. Finally, I turned to the culinary arts and became a baker. This too proved futile however because no matter how much bread I baked I always kneaded more.

I knew it as a kid staring at a cement wall:

There is no such thing as touch.