People,

I just read a newspaper article about a girl in New York who was killed by a subway train while trying to retrieve her cell phone from the tracks. When she was actually struck there were two men holding her arms, trying vainly to pull her up to the platform.

I mention this not only because it horrifies me, but also because I'm glad I'm not one of those two guys. I mean, I wouldn't want to be the girl either, but at least she doesn't have to replay her failure to save someone's life for the rest of her own life.

My own internal mechanism for tragedy is set to a hair trigger. I live in constant fear that I'll witness a car accident or that someone close to me will die, or that my children will all be born with no heads, or that if they have heads, that those heads will be horribly deformed, or that if they're born with horribly deformed heads that they will inevitably die in a bicyclye accident. And once one of these things happen, I'm convinced that I will dwell on it until I die, never being happy again.

I know I need to chill out, but please don't die, OK?