People call me with bizarre problems, because I work as an attorney, an associate at a law firm specializing in personal injury, particularly those arising out of motor vehicle accidents. What a bizarre accident I just heard about. Driver and passenger in a car were having an argument when its passenger pulled the emergency brake (lovers' quarrel, accusations of betrayal and infidelity?), this on the West Side Highway near dawn, while the car behind them was doing 80.

All miraculously sustained minimal injuries in this short stop rear-end highway smash-up. Amen.

I listened, I shared my experience, but when push comes to shove, what are my skills? Jerry, successfully settling at trial today, reminded me he can make people look bad under cross examination. He's a former legal aid trial attorney who has discounted testimony from the toughest witnesses the prosecution could offer. I suppose he has a gift that threatens, that results in the profitable outcome once he reaches the standoff, the front lines of the battle.

That ability to threaten victory under pressure sustains the office where I work, paying the salary for me and his seven other employees, even as we sustain him, sending him forward to that crisis point.

My results tend to be considerably less threatening, unless I threaten people with my thinking about them.

What can I do that no one else can?

Let's see, I can absorb and tolerate worry and aggravation as I "happ'ly wait for my next happy moment."

What are my goals? James Chladek, during my 15 minute New Yorker interview last night, asked, where do I see myself in five years? I said, I see myself living in Manhattan, with my shows running with lives of their own, and a country place to work and raise a growing family with my loved one.

Well, facing eviction or financial debilitation, I acknowledge that, in fear of ridicule, I have ridiculed just about everything I could have held sacred in my life,

Even the term "loved one" used above carries with it the funeral director's dearly departed connotation...

My life, my priorities, my loves... my belief is, they, me, everyone, we all withstand ridicule.

I was bullied as a child. I never reached the stand-off. I ran home, then resented my parents when they lost faith in my ability to take care of myself.

Wounded, I act wounded, attracting the similarly wounded and sometimes appearing to reject what I perceive to be their wounded offer of assistance. I'm afraid.

I read on a church's outdoor marquee during last week's Jitney ride, and I paraphrase with my usual gift of faulty memory: "Jump. Sometimes you have to build your parachute on the way down."

Then the song reprise begins. "We're in this love together."

We are all in this universe together.