I had always been the hardest on myself when I drew and painted. I am not hard on myself when I write. I like what I write, so it is a much happier process.

It is helpful to know the proper way to behave, so one can decide whether or not to be proper.

He -it- was a specter! I stepped back, stunned.

When I was little I knew my father had been an orphan and had lived in an orphanage. I was curious, but my father wouldn't satisfy my curiosity. He told only one story about the orphanage, and that was of sneaking out and buying candy, which he sold to other orphans. He said he had a pretty good business going - till he was busted! I guess he told that anecdote because he was the hero of it and I suspect he was rarely the hero as a child, more often the victim. There's a photo of the actual orphanage on my website, and you can see it's a forbidding looking place.

To pretend I was sliding down the stair rail." He laughed again. " You should have done it. I would have caught you at the bottom.

Although we didn't invite Lucinda, she arrived anyway-with a gift. "No need," Char and I chimed together. "Remember when you were a squirrel," Mandy said.

No one is here," Char said. "You need resist temptation no longer." "Only if you slide too." "I'll go first so I can catch you at the bottom." He flew down so incautiously that I suspected him of years of practice in his own castle. It was my turn. The ride was a dream, longer and steeper than the rail at home. The hall rose to meet me, and Char was there. He caught me and spun me around.