It’s Grandpa’s 93rd birthday. Mom’s family is migrating to Cape Cod. Planning has been fraught with slim peril but abundant indecision. Though I recently started trusting my arthritic hands to hold a barbell and took up weightlifting again, I don’t trust them enough to attempt the six-hour drive. Since I can’t drive alone, I’ve looked at planes, trains and buses and they’re all byzantine routes and prohibitively expensive. Daria offers me a seat in her Ford eighteen-wheeler with her husband driving, and her three children in car seats. I’ll have to take a local bus from the Cape to Boston and Amtrak back to Metro Park but when it comes right down to it, I’m still sitting in a car for six hours with my sister.

Look forward to this scintillating exchange over the sobs of frightened children:
Daria: Sweetheart, Mommy didn’t mean to make Auntie Tata sound like a $2 whore!
Tata: Honey, Auntie Tata doesn’t really think your Mommy’s a judgmental bitch!
Daria: Sweetheart, close your eyes and go to sleep. Auntie Tata’s hairstyle won’t turn to snakes!
Tata: Have sweet dreams, darling, and don’t give Mommy’s apparently forgotten past a second thought!

History and histrionics aside, Paulie Gonzalez is a scientist at heart. When he watches TV at all, it’s usually the Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters. Stuff blows up every seven minutes. This show may be the best thing that ever happened to crash test dummies and ping pong balls. It’s science! And Paulie is a big thinker. One night last year, he posed an intriguing question.

Your picture goes all swirly and woo-woo.

Paulie: Plastic surgery seems like tricky stuff. I mean, if you have regular surgery and you go back to work, people give you flowers and whisper when they walk past your desk. People get you coffee. They’re all very nice. But what if you get liposuction? Suppose you get your ass lipo’d on Friday. When you come to work on Monday, what? Don’t people see you in the break room and say, “Treesa! Last week, you had a fat ass. What the hell? What happened to your fat ass?”

You get a grip and your picture regains horizontal hold. It’s all about the love, no?

You: Ta, dahhhhhhling, your time-travel unnerves my pet hedgehog.
Tata: Lovey, I understand they enjoy a leisurely swim, but read the manual first.

Last week, Paulie was on a flight to Denver when the airline went all Julie, Your Cruise Director and organized a game: Guess The Plane’s Weight.

I know: how rude!

Certain hints were offered, like the number of passengers and weight limit on bags. Paulie did that blasphemous math stuff the righteous are trying to remove from schools, then some educated guessing, wrote down an answer on his game piece, which is – yes – what all the kids are calling it now, and turned it in. Next thing he knew, he’d won by guessing within 500 lbs. of the crew’s right answer, and the second-best guesser was protesting. His prize was two tickets to the Las Vegas production of Mama Mia. Travel produces exciting new varieties of bad behavior, as does ABBA.

Yesterday, I noticed strange and sneaky movements on the parts of my co-workers, the Nice Ladies. They’re in their forties and fifties. When I caught a bunch of them tiptoeing past my cubicle I was suspicious. Five minutes later, they tiptoed in the other direction. I hate when someone beats me to a good prank, so I tiptoed after them. My student worker, whose name sounds like the sudden opening of a brilliant parasol, reflexively followed. They were whispering to each other. We were silent.

Tata: Whatcha doin’?

Turns out that when well-behaved people who work in libraries are startled while furtively holding water balloons they juggle like the Brothers Karamazov. Two balloons took brief sojourns above our heads. One Nice Lady stuffed a balloon down her bra. In the ensuing but arid chaos, it became clear that Chinese children may not fill balloons with water and fling them at one another, and I say this because my curious and delighted student worker, whose name sounds like the tinkle of bracelet charms, stared at the balloons as if they were the coolest things ever.

The Nice Ladies were intrigued and answered all questions. How does the water get inside? Where’s the air? What do you do with these? Why do they feel so funny? Can you make them bigger? They gave her one to hold she soon discovered felt weirdly alive, as water balloons do. The Nice Ladies made a big production of taking the balloons to the restrooms to meet their fates, but they gave my student worker, whose name sounds like the taps of raised glasses, a fresh balloon she could take home and try filling herself. This, I thought, was a charming example of how travel broadens a person, and inflates.

This morning, my path to work was blocked by a hastily cobbled-together police roadblock. A truck driver forgot to play “How big? Sooooo big!” with his truck and plowed into the train trestle I see from my living room window. This meant Amtrak riders snickered across state lines about the trailer curiously right outside the train’s window. For me, it meant a two-block detour and a thump on the forehead from the Cosmos: last week when Daria, Sandro and I looked at the new apartment, Daria drove through the parking deck next to the library. I’ve parked at least eight different cars and trucks in this deck on and off for nineteen years and never gave clearance a second thought. Last week, as Daria inched through the deck, I broke into a sweat and wasn’t sure we’d make it. That’s how big SUVs have become.

So there’s hope we won’t be able to slug each other across the DMZ of car seats and luggage. I mean, as long as there’s no ABBA.

Mostly, we are used to feeling but not seeing cowardly people skittering in the dark and manipulating our lives through fear and innuendo. Sometimes we see an evolved soul doing what needs to be done, regardless of the risk to herself. Our impulse is to look away and pretend nothing special is happening, because if that person can act, we might take ourselves to task for not doing the same.

Well, if you haven’t, please meet Cindy Sheehan. Many on the right will accuse her of – frankly – any vile thing that fits through a narrow mind, but don’t believe any of that, not a word of it. If you have children, believe in what you feel for them and ask youself as I do: shouldn’t we all be sitting on that dirt road in Texas?

One. Mine.

Mamie: Oh, and if someone tells you you have to see The Island, tell them to STICK IT UP THEIR ASS!
Tata: That bad?
Mamie: By the end of the movie I was shouting your line. “This movie needs a fucking red pen!” When the movie got to two hours, I checked my pulse.
Tata: That’s too bad. I like Scarlet Johanson.
Mamie: And who doesn’t love Ewan McGregor? He was wearing a turtleneck! I think the perfect man would be wearing a turtleneck and no pants.
Tata: No, that’s a toddler running from bathtime.
Mamie: Huh! Remember that time at your birthday party in that restaurant where everything was served on fire? I hate to say it but I feel like your mom looked when Crease pulled a thong with tags on it his from his pocket and said to her, “Hey Lucy, you left this at my place.”

Two. Hers.

Mamie: I was accosted by Jehovah’s Witnesses in disguise this morning when I came out of Dunkin Donuts.
Tata: Fooled by their fake mustaches, were you?
Mamie: I said, “Are you seriously trying to talk to people in the morning?! The new Watchtower is a magazine called Awake! Zealot freaks.
Tata: Imagine thinking you wanted to remain conscious!
Mamie: I was REALLY unhappy when the older one said, “I used to know your mother when she was a substitute teacher, back before she died.”
Tata: That bitch! Did she know your mom after she died, too?
Mamie: I was stunned momentarily, long enough to hear the “we’re not even talking about religion” line and for them to get the stupid newsprint booklet into my hand. All the front said was the title and a headline, “Skin Cancer: how to protect yourself.” And yes, it was about religion. Not only did they waylay me on my way to work, but they lied.
Tata: Oh. My. God! You WERE fooled by their fake mustaches!

Ned, the rock star ex-boyfriend who probably played on albums you possess, responds to this with a bit of the old white-hot vitriol:

Yes, there absolutely is more to this story! The “more” is two sets of parents that have long avoided kicking the asses of their charming little offspring that desperately need it in fear of being the “bad guy” and after all they just don’t have time what with “the career” and the endless pursuit of big shiny expensive things that go “vroom vroom” and suck up more fossil fuel than Otis can guzzle in cheap moonshine on a Saturday night (insert a Harry Chapin tune here…covered by Cannibal Corpse!) The “more” is a judicial system that always seems to find time to twaddle around with bullshit like this while on the other side of town there’s gang wars and people being raped and stray bullets striking innocent children and drug dealers and hookers and things being stolen on a minute to minute basis. Need I remind you of a young man in a New Brunswick emergency room dripping blood on the floor from a hole in his forehead while a “man in blue” asked him (and I quote) “Well, what the fuck do ya want ME to do about it?” The answer IS: sheer unadulterated LAZINESS! The cops in Fresno would have rather risked getting scratched on the arm by an 11-year-old girl than risk getting shot in the face doing what they’re really supposed to be doing. Out in PA, there’s a big ta-doo over hiring more police. WHAT THE FUCK FOR?! All they’re gonna do is hang around the outskirts of town waiting for Joe Regularguy to forget to use his turn signal while chaos reigns supreme down in “the hood”. As John Belushi once said “^%^&$%^%*^@!” Oh there’s so much more to this story. Connect the dots between bullshit like this and things like “The Patriot Act” and (enter Robert Preston) “Wellllll, ya got trouble, my friends, right here in River City.”

Dude! You’re gonna pop a blood vessel!

A few years ago, Ned moonlighted as the doorman at a bar we all worked at, lived at and sometimes woke up in. One night, a local douchebag – as opposed to those elite-level douchebags we see on the news every night – didn’t feel up to showing his ID and pitched Ned head-first down a long flight of concrete stairs. I happened to be in the bar that night with Paulie Gonzalez, and though this is a fishbowl so small you can’t fit a fish in it, I didn’t hear about this somehow until later.

Since everyone knew who committed the assault, you’d think that guy would be padding around a cell now in prison-striped pajamas, wouldn’t you? Nope, the New Brunswick Police showed up. Did they arrest the alleged douchebag?

As for the short answer to the question on Loki, yes they HAD arrested him about THREE MONTHS after the incident, at which point they wanted to make me the fallguy for years of his bullying, while his “posse” circled around like knife-wielding vultures warning me of the consequences for my cooperating with the police. Subtle reminders like the business cards for Loki’s tattoo shop being left on my windshield wiper. But to make a long painful story short, there was supposed to be a trial over all of this, and I grudgingly agreed to it. After I moved to PA I never heard another word about it, even after repeated calls to the DA & the police department to ask “What the fuck?” So you see my anger in that lies in the fact that they wouldn’t deal with this as the criminal act that it was, they dealt with this as a “complaint”. I.E.: the easy way out.

Well, next thing ya know ol’ Ned’s a millionaire…

Note: For once, I didn’t change the guy’s name because the name of the Norse God of mischief plainly isn’t something Mom dreamed up, and everyone knew what happened, and the raw deal just never ended.

Ned is not, in fact, a millionaire, but he would have felt like a million if he could have accessorized with a little sympathetic handling by the cops. People who complain about the police are not always whiners and miscreants. Sometimes, they’re people with legitimate problems who turn to the police for help and instead get the shaft.

I’m not saying everyone who complains about the police has a point but some do. We can’t believe everything we hear, but we should give everyone a fair chance to speak. In Fresno, the police chief’s mom should grab his earlobe, twist and send him to bed without supper. In Guantanamo Bay, people are being held without charges, access to lawyers or hope of due process. And if we listen closely, our administration is quietly telling us it is planning invasion of yet another sovereign nation without a declaration of war.

Hmm.

I looked this up. If you can stand it, our President reminds me of a character I vaguely remember from a Star Trek episode called “The Squire Of Gothos.” Captain Kirk and his unnaturally attractive crew are confronted with a seemingly all-powerful being named Trelane who bats them around like cat toys. Just as Kirk’s about to sacrifice himself to save his crew, two voices scold Trelane and tell him, essentially, you can’t play with your things like that. Here’s a synopsis. Please have a look. It’s time for us to rein in our errant children and our errant President, and our errant police departments. We don’t have to be angry about the whole thing, just firm and patient. The administration has had every opportunity to demonstrate it can guide the nation, with the nation’s best interests at heart, and in a way that doesn’t harm the planet or hurt other peoples. Our children need a spanking – not a beating, a spanking. And our police departments need a new idea of who’s in charge, because we are, and locking up an 11-year-old for throwing a rock is childish and immature.

Patience. Firmness. Liberal use of the calmly spoken “No.” Discipline is required, and we must make our intentions clear. No. No. No.

The painful, epic search for an apartment seems to be over. Yesterday, I went to the credit union and sweated copiously while a cashier withdrew more than $1200 from my account and turned it into one of those magical bank check/whatsises you get when people don’t actually trust you with your own money. Who could blame them? If I handed you a check for a thousand dollars you’d look for a hidden camera and a subcommittee – not that I have empirical proof of this assertion, mind you. When I write a check for $200, my hands shake. When the cashier made yesterday’s account-depleting withdrawl, I gasped for breath and tried not to yak.

This represents progress. When I used to cut straight to yelling for Buicks I…switched banks a lot.

Last week, I looked at an apartment and I loved it. It was more space than I believed possible, rent was reasonable, and the location nearly ideal. Unfortunately, when I saw a living room large enough that I could dance again I became knuckle-dragging stupid. Important details escaped my notice, like that it was a third-floor walk-up and I am an arthritic little old lady who shops in bulk. I pictured myself with a premature granny cart. I craved that apartment like some devotees crave chocolate but faced facts and called the manager, and I asked if a ground-floor one-bedroom was available. Not only didn’t she hang up on me but she made an appointment for me to see something right away.

Tata: Pick me up and help me look at the apartment.
Daria: Why? What’s your problem?
Tata: Faced with an unsigned lease, I can’t feel my hands and feet.

The family has a long and colorful history with phobia. For years, Mom didn’t drive over bridges or fly. It takes effort to keep an irrational fear from blossoming into a full-blown, debilitating phobia. I work at it with a rigorous regimen of laughing at my own stupidity and fearfulness. And just look at you with the helping!

The manager takes us to a door and buzzes. A young woman answers the door. Her hair is dyed black; she is a member of my tribe, Artists. I stand up straight. She takes us into a foyer too crowded for four women and Daria’s three-year-old Sandro, who refuses to touch the floor with any part of his tiny body. I walk into the living room and – right on cue – become very stupid.

See, this is a new phase of life and I’ve been thinking about things I’ve never done before. I want things I’ve never wanted before. I want to paint a living room in the colors of growing things. I want to sleep in a cornflower blue bedroom. When I walk into a sage green living room in an apartment that is otherwise white, I stare, dumbstruck. The manager and the tenant – I hear this distantly, as if miles away – talk about the costs of repainting the room to white. I’m still staring.

Tata: Leave it green. This is my apartment.
Daria: Did you bump your pointy head?
Tenant: I’m sorry it’s such a dark color.
Manager: My husband will paint it white and –
Tata: No. This color. I’ve been dreaming about this green.
Manager: Sold!
Tenant: I’ll leave you the rest of the can!
Daria: Are her pupils fixed and dilated?

Near my feet, a small black cat looks awfully familiar. The tenant says, “The cat was rescued by a woman in North Jersey. The cat probably will not come to you. It’s a kitten still, and skittish.” The kitten, whose face is identical to my cat’s, comes right to me and licks my fingers. In the bedroom, where I feel terribly self-conscious, Daria throws open the closet door and smiles. She does the same thing twice more in the foyer. I throw the light switch in the bathroom and we both gasp.

Fourteen years ago, our father’s mother died. She lived all our lives in one of these World War II garden apartment complexes in New Brunswick. The bathroom is the dead-giveaway: pink tiles, black and white tile floor. In a way, I have come home and I’m still speechless. Do I need pink towels?

Daria: Let’s look at the kitchen.
Tata: …kitchen…

It’s big. I can roll out dough. I can do a few other things, including the tango. The manager tells me the rent is slightly less than the dance studio of last week – but not much, really. The tenant looks me in the eye, which I love. I ask why she’s leaving. She explains that she’s chosen to get a teaching certificate in Ramapo and it’s a good program and it’s expensive to live up there and I listen to the sound of her voice for any quiver of duplicity. I hear none. I can tell Daria doesn’t hear one either. The young woman’s on her way up, and the vibe – if we can be so bold – is very positive.

We leave the apartment. Outside, we ask about facilities. Then we see the laundry room and Daria whispers.

Daria: If you ever walk down here I’m having you committed.
Tata: I’ll macrame the leather straps.

Change is terrifying. This, I know, is where I should go. I am very much afraid about money and time and loneliness but I’ve put down my security deposit. In a few weeks, I will move here, live here, write for you from here. It seems strange when I think about it: all this time I’ve been urging you to live bravely, I’ve never told you how hard I struggle against fear myself. It is brave to do the thing that frightens you, whether it is moving house or refusing to submit to the current climate of desperation, fanaticism and fear. Thing is: it’s totally worth it, especially when we are in it together.

*p.92 Milorad Pavic’s Dictionary of the Khazars
Terrible book. Read p.92 only.

Meet Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul – perhaps, after this color-coordinated bath you will submit to his will.

Don’t take your eyes off his handsome eeeeeeeevil!

Yet another case of “You Act Your Age While I Act Like A Big Baby.”

Maribel needs a spanking. Adults in Fresno need a reminder of dumb things they did as kids, which were probably smarter than what they’re doing now.

There must be more to this story but what could it possibly be? I hope those puffed-up morons don’t hear about the time I went after Daria with a baseball bat!

First thing this morning I turn the hot water faucet and the knob comes apart in my hand. I go back to bed. Hours later, Daria calls.

Daria: Are you sick or sick and tired?
Tata: I’m enjoying being flat on my pillowtop bed, which is seldom available at work.
Daria: I wanted to call and invite you because I didn’t want you to feel left out. It’s Sandro’s birthday –

OH SNAP! My godson!

Daria: – and if you’d like you can join us at the Rainforest Cafe. We’re going to –
Tata: No! No, thank you! Have a hot time without me!
Daria: It’s like banging your head on a door: feels great when you stop. I love leaving there!
Tata: That’s not saying much for the joint.
Daria: Oh sure, their acoustics suck but my kids make the noise.

My momentary panic subsides. I didn’t forget to buy a gift. Every spring, I use my tax refund to buy my nieces, nephews and teenage sister one savings bond for Christmas and another for their birthdays. I don’t know anything about economics and can barely spell it but I’ve read that buying savings bonds hurts the federal budget by creating debt. Personally, I think the federal government hurts the federal budget by creating debt, but then again I believe in crazy ideas like telling the truth, so what do I know? Anyway, Daria and her husband are in possession of a savings bond for my little nephew/godson and I can calm down, can’t I? I can.

Just after noon, I decide to run errands. The day is perfect. I sit in my car and do all the little things one does before putting the car in reverse: fixing the seat, buckling the seatbelt, adjusting the rearview mirror, clicking the faceplate on the CD player. Then I think, ‘What the hell,’ and put the top down on my convertible. The CD player erupts with Iggy Pop’s Lust For Life. I turn it WAY up and back out of my parking space.

Someday, when we are truly smart, we will find a way to live in the sun. For the first few minutes, traffic crawls toward French Street, then down toward Hamilton, where I turn left and deliberately slow down. Hamilton Street becomes Amwell Road and both are speed traps, serving as fundraisers for three towns. A lot of people pay no attention and fund municipal projects with their impatience. They pass me today and I smile sweetly, my heart suffused with joy. There’s no room for rancor. I’m driving a fucking convertible on a sunny day.

Recently I’ve come across two interesting campaigns. One asks you to leave the truth of the matter lying around where other people can find it. The other asks you to insist the piper get paid. Things fall apart, people come together. There is simply no excuse for the brutality we are visiting upon one another and on peoples around the world. Just this once, I won’t give that teenaged Speed Racer with the tricked-out used Saturn the finger. With the sun on my face, I remember that happiness can be as powerful a motivator for change as horror, and laughter fends off the authoritarian in any nature. I can let him go and hope his antics buy library books. ‘Cause I’m peaceful. Like.

…and sometimes I’m Fess Parker.

My father – author of such remarks as, “No, I would not have bailed out you and your sister for swimming in the reservoir. I drink that water,” and, “WASPS! Get my chainsaw and a Slurpee!” – once posed an intriguing question.

Daddy: What does it feel like to feel smart?
Tata: Like a monumentally high cloud ceiling. Like you can see for miles in every direction. Like you can connect the dots between lightning bugs.
Daddy: Have you been dating the Science Club?

It’s great when you feel smart. When you’ve done something smart you walk a little taller, feel a little cooler and think about your next smart move. You’re smart. Isn’t it great to be smart? If I feel a little taller, cooler and smoother, this is usually the time I trip over the ottoman and look around for Morey Amsterdam. As a human, I have been so consistently stupid and done so many stupid things it’s a freaking miracle I’ve sandwiched in a few sparse moments of reasonable smartness. It’s not the picture that lacks balance.

Tata: It is 7:30 a.m. and I’ve already had a full day of Stupid.
Mamie: Lay it on me like a lead XRay vest!
Tata: So I go to bed at midnight because I’m not the right kind of tired to sleep. After 2, I sleep in twenty minute fits and starts. And Larry –
Mamie: The little black cat bent on stealing my soul?
Tata: – the very one! The cat’s running laps like it’s Indianapolis. And just before 6, Larry claimed my yoga mat in the name of France and bit me when I wanted it for Spain!
Mamie: What?
Tata: He miraculously bit the bottom of my foot. Wasn’t I standing on that? My living room carpet looks like a crime scene.
Mamie: Your life sucks!
Tata: And I had to swat him! This conflicts with my recent desire to live a non-violent life.
Mamie: Are you a vegetarian again?
Tata: – Except for that. And Asian representative bodies. Man, I love a good knock-down, drag-out parliament!

At the library, ours is a society of women. My student worker, whose name sounds like the gentle yawning of new kittens, waits patiently as Daria calls and we sort out details of the family’s convergence on Cape Cod for Mom’s dad’s birthday. In a society of women, it is understood that you’re going to talk to your children, your parents, your sisters and business will have to wait; the trade off is there’s no money to be made. I feel rather middle-aged, there’s a message from Friday on my voicemail, and I tell my student worker, whose name sounds like a cash register readying itself to dispense change, “My parents are just crazy!”

Tata; So on Friday I left here and my mother left a message here, then one at my apartment and then a second one. ‘Ta, please call before your nap.’ So I called her, thinking something terrible had happened. She says, ‘I’ll be right over.’ Um…okay. She hands me a plant and some bread and that’s just great. I love plants! Bread is great! Then she does this crazy thing: she pulls out a brochure and asks about paint chips. There are all these lifeless colors and I think about white, off-white, gray, blue-gray, beige and impossibly-lifeless-green. How is this possible? I’m like, ‘Mom, how about you paint your house a real color?’ Oh please, wanna borrow my mom?

This is a rhetorical question I blurt in my office. Women with living mothers want to trade them for a player to be named later. Women whose mothers have gone to the PTA Meeting In the Sky narrow their eyes and hope my department store socks run before I wear them. You’d think I would have learned to shut up. No! My willowy student worker, whose name sounds like a delicate broken doorbell, looks into her hands and takes a breath.

Student Worker: Yes!

How could I be so stupid? She has been alone in the United States for three years. She wants her Mommy!

A wise and vexed woman in my office interjects: “Mother are all – ” She pauses, making big eye contact. The pause goes on so long my eyes water. “- different,” she says finally.

Dorothy Parker was an orphan. In a way, I could excuse my stupidity by saying I left home and found new mothers. Still, the strange thing is that at my age, some people may now look at me and choose me as theirs. It seems wildly unlikely, but it’s possible. As I used to tell Miss Sasha, “Nobody’s born with the mother they need.” Wait. That’s not right, either.

So that’s a raccoon on my head, huh?

You can sit back in your chairs for a moment. I’m writing this for a Me of six months from now, when I don’t live here anymore and it’s freaking cold.
**********************************************************

It is a lovely summer afternoon. The sun and the clouds cast shadows that skate over the city’s treetops. You can see steeples, watertowers, the gridbacks of billboards and coral rooves rising from the greenery and your view is dominated by the sky striated by six sets of railway wires. Your eyes itch. Your eyes have itched for weeks. Not-scratching is your summer hobby and you may finally be getting good at it until you fail completely a handful of times a day. You are sipping seltzer with lime because you’ll take any excuse to feel lime’s clean bite. It reminds you of handsome grownups when you were very small. The air over the city seems very white, as if the sunlight’s summer yellowness failed to fall all the way here. It is somewhere, but it’s not here.

Summer is wonderful. You wish it would never end. If you have one fantasy it is to live in a place where you can step out your back door all year round, inhale deeply the green, spiny plant smell and pick a ripe tomato, warm with the afternoon sun. More than anything else you can imagine, this is happiness. When you’re a shrivelled old bird in the strip club business with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other, you hope it’s in a zip code closer to the Equator, where the outlandish nights are balanced by tranquil sunny afternoons.

**********************************************************

Most people leave behind the books of their childhood. The first book I remember picking out for myself was collage artist Leo Lionni’s Frederick. All characters in the book are mice living a hardscrabble existence in a rock wall. Most of the mice gather nuts and seeds diligently for the winter. One mouse saves smells and sensations for darkest winter and gives this sustenance to his fellows when they need it most. It is probably the most important book of my life. And when I read unbearably cruel stories about the unimaginable savagery human beings unleash upon one another, I try to create for myself the hope that someday all people will matter in just societies, and everyone can pick his and her own ripe, luscious tomatoes.