The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure.

I'm quite confident that my Twitter account holds everything I'll ever need to recount my life in a memoir or autobiography. The updates I send and the conversations I hold through text message with people I have never really met are some of the most honest -- albeit, occasionally trivial on the surface -- notes on a life lived.

I just finished reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and I have a better understanding of reality. I can't really explain what I mean or how I feel about that book. But if ever I write a memoir, I hope those who read it take away a better understanding of those around them, and the differences in the way others live, and what that means for the world as a whole.

"'Dear God,' she prayed, 'let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere -- let me be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.'" (p. 421 of my edition)

I hear you, Francie. I hear you.