And what we were trying to offer every day was one-on-one attention. The goal was to have a one-to-one ratio with every one of these students.

Hello Frances, I have just been to health class, and I was wondering how your feminine parts were developing.

We have advantages. We have a cushion to fall back on. This is abundance. A luxury of place and time. Something rare and wonderful. It's almost historically unprecedented. We must do extraordinary things. We have to. It would be absurd not to.

In all my life I'd never been approached this way, the car pulling up, the Where you going? It was something I wish had happened hundreds of times. I was a looker - someone who looked over at every car at every traffic light, hoping something would happen, and almost never finding anyone looking back - always everyone looking forwards, and every time I felt stupid. Why should people look at you? Why should they care?

We were fools and now we were driving to our deaths in a rental car. Janet Jackson was tinkling from the speakers, asking what we had done for her as of late

Why do we pursue information that we know will never leave our heads?

It was always difficult to get cattle returned once a marriage was dissolved.