The change of season encourages the ego to bloat. While Fante would remark on the brave nature spring provides, how it gives young men the license to feel one thing one moment, another the next (I feel as if Raymond Carver and John Fante would have been wonderful friends), I can't help but slightly tug for a sense of rationality.

Yes, I mock-up Arturo Bandini with his bedroom excercises and feel the swell of bicep beneath a dirty white t-shirt as I strut about town. And yes, I see sometimes the looks of girls and women when I feel as if I'm doing something charming or reckless. But I do not accept them. I do not return them. Stranger still, it does not feel like isolation or a self-execution. It feels not a strain to do one thing or the other. I am not sure if I have rid myself of conviction or whether I just don't care.

Stranger still, I can't stop thinking about that snake Quinn killed.