So I was curled up in a chair watching TV, scratching my left leg. I felt a little divot so I looked closer and rediscovered an old scar. It looks like the kind people used to get from smallpox vaccinations. Suddenly I was back in ninth grade, climbing on the bus. I swung my backpack into the seat and it smashed against my calf. Not unusual for me, but this time my improperly stowed drawing compass jammed into the meaty part. Yowch! It was as if my backpack had turned into a giant wasp. Puncture wounds, my favorite. Also, geometry. Another big favorite.

I remember that bus. In the afternoons I would sit near my friends Yvette and Joey, who never talked. Yvette never talked because she didn’t have much to say. Joey never talked because he preferred the challenge of drawing pictures in his school notebooks while the bus was jolting down decaying roads. In the mornings I would sit next to my friend Kara, who, even though she had kind of a hippie vibe, would stoop to wearing ribbons around her ponytail on game days. I’d have voted her Most Improbable Cheerleader if there had been a category for that.