The Worse The Haircut, The Better The

All Along — Not Only Since She Left, But For A Decade Before — I Had Been Imagining Her Without Listening, Without Knowing That She Made As A Poor A Window As I Did. And So I Could Not Imagine Her As A Person Who Could Feel Fear, Who Could Feel Isolated In A Roomful Of People, Who Could Be Shy About Her Record Collection Because It Was Too Personal To Share. Someone Who Might Have Read Travel Books To Escape Having To Live In The Town That So Many People Escape To. Someone Who — Because No One Thought She Was A Person — Had No One To Really Talk To.

Stupid Truth, Always Resisting Simplicity

I Hate The Idea That, When It Comes To Books And Learning, Hard Is Often Seen As The Opposite Of Fun. It's Strange To Me That We Should Be So Quick To Give Up On A Book Or A Math Problem When We Are So Willing To Grapple, For Centuries If Necessary, With A Single Level Of Angry Birds.

..there She Is, And I Am Watching Her Through Plexiglass, And She Looks Like Margo Roth Spiegelman, This Girl I Have Known Since I Was Two–this Girl Who Was An Idea That I Loved. And It Is Only Now, When She Closes Her Notebook And Places It Inside A Backpack Next To Her And Then Stands Up And Walks Toward Us, That I Realize That The Idea Is Not Only Wrong By Dangerous. What A Treacherous Thing It Is To Believe That A Person Is More Than A Person.

Traveling, I Am Finding, Teaches You A Lot Of Things About Yourself. For Instance, I Never Thought Myself To Be The Kind Of Person Who Pees Into A Mostly Empty Bottle Of Bluefin Energy Drink While Driving Through South Carolina At Seventy-seven Miles Per Hour - But In Face I Am That Kind Of Person.