In 1984, the first Apple Macintosh computer went on sale. I was still using a Smith-Corona typewriter and doing retypes for every edit. The first release of Barnacles was actually done with waxed newspaper columns and traditional paste-up. That year, the U.S. attacked Nicaragua and President Reagan called for an International ban on chemical weapons. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated while 3800 people were killed in the Bhopal disaster. Thousands were injured and 600,000 more would later die. My problems seemed so insignificant. I had just gone thru a divorce and found out that there is a thin line between love and hate. I had been told that my first book "Letters From The Hole" was too dark and depressing. However, they read my poems in college English classes, so I kept writing. The verses that I scribbled on pieces of scratch paper and bar napkins became "Barnacles," the pieces of my life that stuck and were extremely hard to scrape off.