Memory warps time, as it does the sights and sounds and smells of reality; for what shapes it is emotion, which can twist what seems clear, just as the surface of a pond seems to bend the stick thrust into the water.

Why did I laugh at his sorry, bedraggled appearance? Because ridiculousness made a repellant situation more bearable.

Female authors were still using male names when I was young, or they were neatly shoehorned into womens books except for those few that men could always point at when the disparity was pointed out.

Because you showed one face to all the rest of the world, and another to me.

Why is it the songs all end with the good people winning, but in life they don't?" They don't make songs when the good lose," I muttered. "They make war chants against the bad. So there won't be any songs for us.

One doesn't lose a self, like a pair of gloves or a pine. We learn and change, or we harden into stone.

They're safe,'' he said. "And you're not made of glass". He swept me up in his arms. I laughed. "And I'm not made of glass." He carried me into our room and kicked the door shut behind us.