quickly: the mnemonic device of scabby knuckles, the only trace left of sake-induced merriment; the necessity of giggling under blankets in parks; the crucial difference between day-faces and night-faces; the lack of tension discovered after the roommates have left, tweaking, for Europe, finally; the idea of something that doesn't breathe or bleed being "human-literate" (as overheard on NPR, as if humans were books or language to be so easily read, so easily known); "I am not for sale!" protestors in Philadelphia insist, when 42 public schools were relinquished to for-profit companies; the character Adah in Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible; my frustration at the chronic inability to purchase consistent supplies of soap and soup ingredients and enriched vanilla soy milk (a boon for the lactose-intolerant) and rainbow trout to scale, flour, fry and a plate with which to serve fried trout; and, of course, my gratitude to friends who bring tubs of ice cream when I don't expect it, the most decadent I could find, Sara said.

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