"digging up blackberry roots and drinking beer"

"When young writers ask me, with that starry, glazed look they get in their eyes, What's the most important thing for a young writer to know or do?, I tell them, without exception (unless their daddy owns Macy's), to try and find a rent-controlled apartment.

Unlike the young aspiring artists and writers today, gathering in places like San Francisco's Mission District and Brooklyn back east, working long hours in hateful jobs to make rent, I as able to pretty much fake it through my thirties, grabbing scut work here and there when necessary.  Come to think of it, during that decade I spent an awful lot of time digging up blackberry roots and drinking beer in the backyard.  I suppose that's the reason, as the trombonist upstairs goes through her scales this morning, a noise most would probably find intrusive or annoying, I find it to be music to my ears."

-- August Kleinzahler, Sallies, Romps, Portraits, and Send-Offs