No one said living isn't a pretty chancy business, Sibyl. No one gets out of here alive.

But it's funny how the memory works and how sometimes we just belive whatever we want.

Now it is you who everyone presumes is so fragile. Wounded. Scarred. Maybe they're right. Perhaps you are. A nursery rhyme comes into your head, and, like an egg, you allow yourself to topple onto your side, your legs still pulled hard against your torso. You lie like that a long while, watching the chrome shell of the tape measure sparkle until the sun moves.

No one said living isn't a pretty chancy business, Sibyl. No one gets out of here alive.

He defined himself almost wholly in the negative: It was not who he was, it was who he was not.

With age comes acumen. With experience comes insight.

Food is a gift and should be treated reverentially--romanced and ritualized and seasoned with memory.