I first started off this note this note to you with complaints about our hiccupy internet and the wad of clothes that my son left in the washing machine. Then I was immediately appalled at myself and erased everything. Such petty problems . . . not even problems at all. Even with hiccups, the internet is better than what we had in Harmony. The son who forgot his wet laundry also made a beautiful dinner for us last night.

Also, we have a washing machine.

What is this urge to complain in ways that only emphasize my ease and privilege? It's a particularly noxious American tic--one that's certainly evident in those obscene demonstrations against the greater good ("I want to go to a bar! Therefore, I will brandish this gun and taunt science!"). I find it easy to excoriate such withering examples of selfishness. I find it less easy to admit that, I too, rest comfortably in an American funhouse, whose mirrors render riches (e.g., safe drinking water, good sewage system, plentiful food, peace) invisible while exaggerating dissatisfactions, acquisitiveness, and jealousies.

Oh, this all sounds holier-than-thou, and God knows I am not that. I love clean sheets and candles at dinner and a pretty dress and putting dishes into a dishwasher and having people tell me I'm a good poet. I just don't want to forget that none of this is a given. None of this is my right.