For a moment, she thought it natural in a way seeing a plane fall from the sky can seem natural, too. The horror comes later.

[M]y mother read a horror novel every night. She had read every one in the library. When birthdays and Christmas would come, I would consider buying her a new one, the latest Dean R. Koontz or Stephen King or whatever, but I couldn't. I didn't want to encourage her. I couldn't touch my father's cigarettes, couldn't look at the Pall Mall cartons in the pantry. I was the sort of child who couldn't even watch commercials for horror movies - the ad for Magic, the movie where marionette kills people. sent me into a six-month nightmare frenzy. So I couldn't look at her books, would turn them over so their covers wouldn't show, the raised lettering and splotches of blood - especially the V.C. Andrews oeuvre, those turgid pictures of those terrible kids, standing so still, all lit in blue.

People see the cleverness of nature and suppose it's the cleverness of the animal itself but it was obvious to me that each and every segment of the animal isn't aware. How much I'd hate to live totally unaware of myself, I thought. What would be the point of living, of existing, if you weren't ever to know about it? I looked at the Fox Moth and pitied it, poor unconscious creature. But then, I supposed, at least it wouldn't be disappointed. It would never find out.

We are beasts, you know, beasts risen from the savannas and jungles and forests. We have come down from the trees and up out of the water, but you can never, ever fully remove the feral nature from our psyches.

We love men because they can never fake orgasms, even if they wanted to.Because they write poems, songs, and books in our honor.Because they never understand us, but they never give up.Because they can see beauty in women when women have long ceased to see any beauty in themselves.Because they come from little boys.Because they can churn out long, intricate, Machiavellian, or incredibly complex mathematics and physics equations, but they can be comparably clueless when it comes to women.Because they are incredible lovers and never rest until we__e happy.Because they elevate sports to religion.Because they__e never afraid of the dark.Because they don__ care how they look or if they age.Because they persevere in making and repairing things beyond their abilities, with the naïve self-assurance of the teenage boy who knew everything.Because they never wear or dream of wearing high heels.Because they__e always ready for sex.Because they__e like pomegranates: lots of inedible parts, but the juicy seeds are incredibly tasty and succulent and usually exceed your expectations.Because they__e afraid to go bald.Because you always know what they think and they always mean what they say.Because they love machines, tools, and implements with the same ferocity women love jewelry.Because they go to great lengths to hide, unsuccessfully, that they are frail and human.Because they either speak too much or not at all to that end.Because they always finish the food on their plate.Because they are brave in front of insects and mice.Because a well-spoken four-year old girl can reduce them to silence, and a beautiful 25-year old can reduce them to slobbering idiots.Because they want to be either omnivorous or ascetic, warriors or lovers, artists or generals, but nothing in-between.Because for them there__ no such thing as too much adrenaline.Because when all is said and done, they can__ live without us, no matter how hard they try.Because they__e truly as simple as they claim to be.Because they love extremes and when they go to extremes, we__e there to catch them.Because they are tender they when they cry, and how seldom they do it.Because what they lack in talk, they tend to make up for in action.Because they make excellent companions when driving through rough neighborhoods or walking past dark alleys.Because they really love their moms, and they remind us of our dads.Because they never care what their horoscope, their mother-in-law, nor the neighbors say.Because they don__ lie about their age, their weight, or their clothing size.Because they have an uncanny ability to look deeply into our eyes and connect with our heart, even when we don__ want them to.Because when we say __ love you_ they ask for an explanation.

...nobody ever takes from the desert anything but aridity and monsters...