Over the last fifteen years, environmental foundations and organizations have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in combating global warming. We have strikingly little to show for it.

A few days after our mother entered the hospital, my brother and I left for summer camp. Our mother, who could still sit up in bed, wanted us to go, and our father did too. We’d been looking forward all summer to sleeping in tents under the stars, rappelling down the sides of cliffs, and hiking along streams.

I ask if I have cancer. Somehow this still isn’t clear to me. When the doctor confirms that I do, it is an odd relief. I don’t want to have to explain to people that the “architectural pattern of my breast lesion features an intraductal papillomatous tumor.” Saying I have cancer will be easier, except when I tell my mother.

Back in my peep-show youth, at New York’s seedier venues, the small booth windows were glassless, and patrons were strongly encouraged to reach through and touch the dancers for a small fee.

Keith had had a plenty rough day, most of it spent with his girlfriend, Bonnie, in an abortion clinic just outside of Pittsburgh. You could see how frayed he was: skinny as hell and that big head of electrocuted hair, smoking one cigarette after another, the blue veins in his forehead like hot wires about to rupture.