Well, yes. As a writer, I know. But I'm still not good at it, and my not saying it doesn't make criticism less worthwhile -- just uglier and sometimes harder to swallow.

We have "known each other" a few years, now, though, and you should know by now that I enjoy your work and your voice a lot, and admire you as a writer. I feel saying that each time would come across a little sycophantic. In this case, it's a clever story -- and that's the best and most notable thing about it: its narrative cleverness.

If I'm going to be totally honest (and I think I may have said this before once), my only real recurring problem with your writing is that it tends to be a little same-same. You tend to rely on similar tricks and tropes from story to story, and your narrative voice is almost always just your voice. Which is a great voice, but it's not enough to be kooky to make a narrative voice interesting, you have to be the right kind of kooky for each story. A lot of my criticisms of your work come down to that -- many of the things that jump out at me do so because they feel like the voice saying them is not quite right for the story.