Compulsions

Perfection

I'm caught for a second by these words....And then I detect a pitfall: if perfection is dissatisfaction, where does happiness come in?

Sign of the Cross

I never managed to quite shake the Catholic out of myself. Not that it is such a bad thing.

Pickings 2

Others pick at their arms, their toes, their face. I pick at a pair of old blisters, my navel, and a spot hidden by my beard.

The Secret
"You don't seem nervous and shy to me at all," Alan averred when I told him that people made me...

Parings

Do you recall my mentioning that a rhino's horn is made of the same stuff as a fingernail? The thought occurs to me that I could save my parings, grind them up, and sell them to desperate Asian businessmen.

Pickings
Something's eating me. The evidence is on my fingers, three of them in particular. The two index fingers and the...