It looks like a dwarf lives here," my father jokes as we stand looking at my apartment. It's a typical studio — futon, television, stereo, and books on the floor. I don't say anything.

My father goes from room to room fixing things. He fixes a leaky faucet in the kitchen, loosens a window which had been painted shut. He tightens the knob on my bathroom door. There are very few drawers to look in.

I follow him around saying, "Please, don't do that. Don't bother. I can do it myself." And, "Please, let me help you."

"Would you like some coffee?" I finally ask.

"That would be nice," he says, staring at a crack in the ceiling. I know what he is thinking: earthquake country.

My friend Martha receives many catalogs in the mail. Some of them she wants; others come on their own. She did not mind until she started getting catalogs advertising clothing for mature and full-figured women. Martha is neither mature nor full figured, but her name is an old, fat name, just as the name Enid reminds one of a bug. These catalogs disturb her.

"Why are they doing this to me?" she wails. "How did I get on a mailing list for old, fat women?" She writes to the company and tells them she is only 26 and a size 8, but the catalogs keep coming. Her self-esteem suffers.

I don't tell Martha, but I'm the one who put her name on those lists. I thought she would appreciate it. Otherwise, she wouldn't get any mail at all.

The bar serves beer from all over the world. Janet and I are drinking our way through Ireland when my ex Mike comes in with his new girlfriend. He pulls two chairs up to our table and we make our introductions. Mike orders a round of Bass, even though he knows I prefer Harp's.

"Have you ever noticed," Mike says in a tone of revelation, "Have you ever noticed that a bright sun makes everything look closer than it really is?"

Janet nods vigorously. "Oh yes, and that fog makes everything look farther away."

"And," I offer, "rain makes everything look wet."

Mike and Janet look at me blankly, as if they hadn't realized I was there. Later we decide to switch to Mexico — meaning, Coronas with a twist. Mike's new girlfriend goes to the ladies room and never comes back.

I sleep in old t-shirts, exercise in my underwear. I play the same song over and over and hang my pantyhose in the bathtub. Some days I don't have to say a word until I get to work in the late afternoon.

Such are the advantages of living alone.

Mental illness, like lightning, sometimes strikes the most likely of targets.

The phone in the apartment downstairs kept ringing. It rang all morning, through three loads of clothes I washed. I heard it as I went up and down the stairs to the laundry room. I had never seen the man who lived there, but I know from the mailbox that his first name is Harvey. It annoyed me that Harvey had friends who would let the phone ring for so long. It annoyed me that Harvey didn't have an answering machine.

Late in the afternoon, I smelled the smell of decomposing bodies in a hot place. It was the Japanese woman across the hall cooking fish heads for dinner. I left for work. Harvey's phone was still ringing.

At the Aquarium, there is a three-legged alligator. In addition to being an amputee, he is old and, they say, more than half blind.

At feeding time, the keeper drops raw meat right on top of the old alligator's head. He has to lean way over the tank to do this. The keeper hangs onto the railing, a caravan of seahorses, with one hand. If he misses, the meat falls to the bottom of the tank where it is quickly snatched up by the smaller, more agile turtles and the alligator goes hungry.