I published a book, and guess what?All my old romances wept with regret.My old enemies swallowed their tongues and are dead.My dear David Sedaris sent texts that read, “Friend…“…your days of obscurity have come to an end.”When I was a boy, I dreamed of owning a four-wheeler. I saved every penny. I was so money hungry, I did every kind of work: mowed lawns, blueberry raked, babysat, landscaped, hayed, painted, cut wood, hauled brush, shoveled snow, and read books (Mom paid us to read back then; that’s how scary our barbarism was to her), but those were just side-hustles, long cuts.My crow-fly road to the dream machine was hope.One day, while biking around in a hope-induced fugue state, foaming, wanting a four-wheeler so badly my prayers were all gnash-marked, I saw a guy riding a Suzuki LT250 QuadRacer up and down the field beside my family’s church.I dismounted, shedding my bike as fast as a loose turd, sat on the church lawn, and watched the guy ride.