Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. - Margaret Atwood

We lived, as usual by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.

How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it.

You’ll be looking to make a niche for yourself in whatever dim, echoing caverns of academia may still exist by your time. I situate you at your desk, your hair tucked back behind your ears, your nail polish chipped — for nail polish will have returned, it always does. You’re frowning slightly, a habit that will increase as you age. I hover behind you, peering over your shoulder: your muse, your unseen inspiration, urging you on. You’ll labour over this manuscript of mine, reading and rereading, picking nits as you go, developing the fascinated but also bored hatred biographers so often come to feel for their subjects.