boo hoo! super stressful! aggghhh!

On 6/13/07, Megan Harrington wrote:

So, have you talked with Margaret/Keren about your plans to not return
with the group? And do you have some kind of letter you are signing
releasing the University from all responsibility?

Thanks…

___________________________________________
Megan Harrington Wilson
Jessie F. Richardson Foundation
15900 SE 82nd Drive, Clackamas, OR 97015
mharrington@jfrfoundation.org
Ph: 503.408.4754 F: 503.255.5929

______________________

Megan,

I have expressed my intention to remain in country, both to you and Keren from the very beginning of involvement with the service project and it has not changed.

I was not informed that I had to release the University from liability or get an OK from Margaret when making a free will decision..
If this is necessary I will happily do so.

Iam now going to express my dissatisfaction with you and the level of organization surrounding our travel and other arrangements.
Myself and two other members of the group have repeatedly expressed our plans to stay in Central America beyond the dates of the service project and you either didn't believe us or ignored the issue. Wyatt, Steven and myself where informed by you that the change fees would be nominal (around $100+fare deviation or none at all if arrangments where made pre-purchase, see 25 Jan em from Michelle) and so we planned our budgets around these numbers, as it turns out the additional fare is, as outlined in the below em from Laura dated May 27, $392 + $100 change fee, not to mention the fact that this information only came to light 3 days before final changes to the tickets could be made (May 30) and I did not get this info until June 4th, for days after any changes could be made.
The result is that Wyatt decided to discontinue travel post project due to increased cost. I have no idea how Steven's plans have changed.
I have payed for a round trip ticket, will likely only be able to use half and then have to buy another one way so that I may fly out from the city i desire and return on the date desired. At this time it will cost approximately $545, one way, from Managua.
I have arranged travel for groups of up to 17, taking into account personal desires and wants, it's can be difficult but issues are resolved easily when delt with promtly.
I know that it can be difficult to deal with travel agents and time crunch's but we are the customers and they are providing a service.
If the service is not acceptable go somewhere else or deal directly with the source(airline) of the service.

Money is money, it comes and goes but I like to decide where my money goes.
I think your a good person but I believe you have continously discounted and ignored Wyatt, Steven and myself in regards to these travel arrangments. It has cost Wyatt an additional life experience, myself, at min, an additional $486 to continue my trip plus some fast taliking in Managua to salvage some of my return fare, I don't know what Steven is doing.

I will not be unhappy for long but be aware that I am not interested in any more wasted time or money.

I have CC'd Keren and Margaret as I believe they should be made of aware of the issues surrounding this episode.

Seth Moody

____________________

Seth-

Thanks for expressing your feelings about this. I understand why you are frustrated/angry and it is definitely best to get this out of the way now. I am sorry for any role I may have played in causing you stress and costing you money.

My role is difficult because I am an intermediary who often does not have complete information and is not able to make final decisions. I had heard early on from you, Wyatt and Steven (and Norm actually) that you interested in extending your stays, and I brought it up with Margaret and Keren, who expressed serious reservations. And I had thought that several months ago when you dropped by the IOA to discuss it with me, I had said that you should really just approach Margaret or Keren directly about the issue, since they would have to give the final approval and I would not be able to help much. I told Wyatt and Steven the same, and Wyatt did eventually do that, and when I heard back from Margaret and Keren I immediately contacted the travel agent who gave us the information.

Most importantly, I sent the email below back in February, and you did not respond. I took your lack of response as a lack of interest, which was probably a mistake.

Again, this is not to say that I don't understand your frustration or refuse to admit any guilt! I just want you to know that I really have tried to be responsive throughout this process.

Thanks,
Megan

___________________________________
From: Megan Harrington
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 2:08 PM
To: 'earp1420@yahoo.com'; 'Steven Zarnfaller'; 'norb@pdx.edu'; 'Seth Moody'
Subject: Extended Stays

It looks like we may have some issues with the University and with IOA regarding student extended stays. Keren requests that each of you write up a little proposal with your reasons for wanting to stay longer in Nicaragua and your plans, and then we’ll take those proposals to the various administrative parties and see what we come up with.

One thing to think about is that if students do end up staying past the date that everyone else returns, the University would want to completely write off any official connections to that student’s further travels, for liability reasons. This probably means that anyone who is considering a Capstone project should not consider any work done in an extended stay in Nicaragua to be part of that Capstone. I know that some of the projects we’ve proposed seem like they would necessarily include some time on the ground in Nicaragua, so I’m not sure exactly what Keren has in mind for these ones… But you’ll need to think about your Capstone projects as things you will accomplish here in Portland, as far as I know.

Thanks!

___________________________________________
Megan Harrington Wilson
Jessie F. Richardson Foundation
15900 SE 82nd Drive, Clackamas, OR 97015
mharrington@jfrfoundation.org
Ph: 503.408.4754 F: 503.255.5929

twichily caffeinated

this is now a regular form of correspondence

________________________________________
From: Megan Harrington
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 10:05 AM
To: Patience Tolentino
Subject: good morning

I don’t know if you’ve talked with keren much this morning but I would avoid it as much as possible.


________________________________________
From: Patience Tolentino
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 10:07 AM
To: Megan Harrington
Subject: RE: good morning

Oh trust me I know I tried to get back and warn you but was unable before you talked to her.






***
also my boss just referred to one of the students, one of the completely not annoying and reasonable nice little students, as a fuckjob.

things that annoy me

this morning i did not feel super sporty so i decided i should take the bus to work. once i make this decision i am wearing office clothes rather than biking clothes, and i go to 82nd rather than the bike path, so the decision is difficult to reverse. when i got to 82nd my bus came by with 2 bikes on the rack so i let it go by. the next bus was due in 15 minutes so i ran across the street and got a cup of coffee. another bus came by in the like 6 minutes it took me to get back across the street, and i missed it. stupid. then a third bus finally came, also with 2 bikes on it. so i called the office and told patience i would be late. then i got on the 4th bus and got off at clackamas town center and biked from there.
so anyway, i was late today.
now it is really dumb because my boss is super pissy and she is in her office making sweeping and ridiculous edits to a powerpoint presentation me and patience are supposed to give in 45 minutes. and what is annoying about this is that we sent her this presentation a week ago for review and she is waiting until now to change it. but she is annoyed at me for being late. even though she will not allow me to do anything to help while she works away at bungling my presentation. when i get it back, 5 minutes before go time, the formatting will be completely wack and there will be various and sundry grammatical and spelling errors. she will have changed the order of the slides, eliminated important information, and generally made everything extremely confusing. when i arrived at the office and asked if i could help (e.g. snatch the presentation out of her hands before she could do further damage) she said in a huff, "leave me alone. i have a lot of work to do on this."
so anyway. 45 minutes before this 2-hour presentation, i am over here in my office completely powerless to prepare in any way. so so so annoying.
another thing that annoys me is that they are doing lots of construction on and around my bike path. there has been one long annoying detour for over a month now, which i have grown to accept, but starting yesterday afternoon they fenced off another section and now i get spilled out into the parking lot of clackamas town center and then have to weave my way west for a while before turning and climbing up a stupid unnecessary hill to the east before reentering the bike path. it's like, WHY? WHY?? WHY???

this is a picture of my high school boyfriend with his two sons

and it is making me feel weird about life.

not gay just happy

o come, all ye faithful

i hadn't done anything to my own blog in so long, nor even checked mercedes' blog (!), that when i typed in the first letters of their respective URLs, FIREFOX DID NOT AUTOFILL.

view outside office window today

i was relieved to see that mercedes has been equally neglectful, but is equally now going to start trying again.

news in my life:

1. boss continues to be obnoxious, but my specific relationship with her is restored to pre-one-year's-notice-giving levels
2. we're going to nicaragua four weeks from today
3. some of the students are stressing me out about money issues
4. i finished reading harry potter 5 in spanish
5. mercedes is arriving tomorrow late night
6. i drive the company car around all the time, and my boss's fancy schmancy car, and have had no incidents since the no-headlights incident
7. i have slipped right back into pre-6-month-review appearance levels; see attached picture
8. i got glasses again. i had contacts for a while, but then i got pinkeye, and generally found the whole process difficult and probably didn't do a good enough job of keeping the lenses clean, etc.
9. i need to clean out my office
10. i was playing snood for a while and then uninstalled the program; feeling good about myself.
11. i watched the movie "volver" last night; it was good (of course)
12. i don't have any meaningful crushes on anyone. have had no romantic episodes since micha and mercedes moved away, that i can think of. feel pretty ok about this.
    
13. i have been failing completely to go to the gym, ever.
14. my room smells like cat pee.
15. i visit an old guy every week as a volunteer; am struggling with the fact that i find these visits boring and stifling. (i'm going over there today after work.)

me smiling in my office

that's all for now! mercedes, looking forward to seeing you!

-megan

store wars

i'm checking out some new craziness

i guess i downloaded this new firefox add on called scribe, and then i forgot about it. or, maybe it is called "scribefire". in any case, i just hit "F8" for whatever reason on my keyboard.

then this half page window popped up in the bottom of my screen. (i was looking for the PC keyboard shortcut for the degree symbol. you know, the little circle. what is that?).

but this seems to be some kind of universal blog editor, is the point. like, i just hit "F8", this window pops up (still allowing me to see the page i was poking around on,) and now there is this button on the bottom that says: "Publish To:" and i'm guessing i can just tell it to publish to my blog!? pretty cool. also, there is a "save as note" button, could also be interesting.

probably not the most fascinating blog entry in the world!

i will try to add a human interest spin:

my name is megan harrington.

i grew up in a very poor family.

my mother visited me yesterday and told me that she doesn't believe in germs and that no one would get cancer or the common cold if they processed their emotions correctly.

she also referred me to an article that says:

The most stunning statistic, however, is

that the total number of deaths caused by conventional medicine is an

astounding 783,936 per year. It is now evident that the American

medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the US. (By

contrast, the number of deaths attributable to heart disease in 2001

was 699,697, while the number of deaths attributable to cancer was

553,251.)

please refute.



°

i found the degree symbol!

i'll do a real post sometime soon

suffice it to say, omg

Beatbox Fame Game
Uploaded by loranger

god

a post from clackamas, oregon

[above: not clackamas, oregon]

all of you but max and mercedes (i.e., tara and micha) have received lengthy, overly lengthy, overly boy-centric accounts of my mexico vacation. so here i offer a brief synopsis with pictures and commentary.


i went to mexico


with liz cartozian and karolina puk


and two dudes i haven't been sent digital pictures of yet.

i am wishing i were writing this blog using iweb, with which i now have a .mac account, since that would be going much more quickly and easily. but alas, due to problems of remote access, i am here now with blogger.

moving along....

we went to a beach in mexico at a town called "san felipe," which, contrary to reuben's belief, is in fact very much a tourist town.



we got suntans and sand chafe and salt in our hair and eyes. we bought a large inflatable crocodile on which liz, karolina and i paddled out to sea like ducks in a row, and a boat came toward us, and in it i recognized the large white boots of a rather creepy man who had approached me in the women's bathroom the night before, and we declared an about face too abruptly, and fell plummeting off the crocodile. and then we laughed and laughed and laughed.

we met a large group of mexican boys/men and adopted them as our boyfriends, and they made us a large delicious meal and brought coffees and said we were pretty. we now have an extensive and somewhat discouraging email correspondence with these boys.



when i returned from beautiful mexico i was at first quite taken aback by the puking and diarrhea i suddenly experienced, as well as the dread and horrors of the professional social nightmare i experience daily. however, i Have Since Adjusted, and the Monster Next Door is Acting Human, and Everything Will Be Just Fine.

just you wait, enry iggins, just you wait

http://www.myspace.com/nagemarat

more reflections, plus resolutions, this time with pictures

yesterday i gave my boss one year's notice, saying that i would most likely be leaving this job in march of 2008. this is because i will hopefully be going to gambia with taya and others in march and april of that year, and because i am not happy here.

i decided leaving any earlier wouldn't be smart because my resume needs me to stay here for a respectable amount of time, and i need a good reference, and i'm terrified of unemployment, and i need to be saving money, etc. and i have great benefits, blah blah blah.

[below: me wanting a good reference]

(my boss was her usual unmovable, dry, blow-offy self about my announcement. reminded me of how important i am to her (not))

so, this is good. on the other hand, it does mean that i actually have to be here for an entire other year. tara is under the impression that my snappiness/easy-to-irritateyness of late is work related, since i usually have crappy days and come home feeling frustrated. i hope that this is true, because otherwise i might just be a snappy/easy to irritate kind of a person. but max visited last week, and said that i seemed to have "hardened" a bit since the time when we were close... and i think maybe i do remember being brighter-eyed, nicer, softer.

[below: al franken hating hip hop]

so... i'm going to try to be more cheerful, less negative. complain less and try to judge others less. be less annoyed by people's annoyingnesses. also, maybe even curse less? i'll have to think about that last one.

we'll see how it goes... i may not be as committed to the project next week as i feel now, since sometimes it's just easier to go through the world in a sardonic and you-can't-touch-me-i'm-too-tough mode, rather than a dewey-eyed, benefit-of-the-doubt-giving mode. my work environment requires sundry and complex defense mechanisms.

i think things have been a bit hard for the whole friend group recently. there is a general impression that people feel stuck in ruts, like our social interactions are predictable and repetitive, nobody likes their jobs (tara and sheila are also miserable at work) people's idiosyncrasies and neuroticisms are annoying other people's idiosyncrasies and neuroticisms, and maybe it's all weather-related. we need to get out more, do more stuff, remember why we all like each other so much.

[below: yeah!]

this all makes it sound like i have been going around acting like a snappy jerk all the time, and that all of our social interactions are lame. this isn't true of course, i'm (for better or worse) more snappy with tara than most people (she's so available for that kind of thing) and you know, i'm my usual self, really. and dork club continues on, laughing is to be had, fun is around, etc. it's just that everything could be a bit more awesome, given our awesomeness resources.

in other news, i converted my desk into a standing desk, and am standing right now, and my feet kind of hurt but i'm into it! overall.

[below: this is how we do it]

i'm excited about many things, including visits and springtime and travels! here's to a bright new future!

farewell to max

max visited town and it was great!

and this is a farewell blog for max: until another time. when we shall romp through the streets of portland once again.

in other news, i think i am dehydrated.

whizzinator

http://www.whizzinator.com/whiz2.htm

alarming slide show in spanish

click here for alarming slide show in spanish

reflections

today is the day after valentine's day, and the day after my great love (al franken) said good-bye.

luckily, i was busy enough at work for the last week or so to have gotten behind in listening to the al franken show, so i still had downloads from monday and tuesday to listen to... i listened live to the last broadcast yesterday... and now have about half an hour left of the tuesday show.

and then... that's it. that's it for me and friendship and comraderie during the workweek.

al franken got all choked up a couple of times this week on air. quite endearing of course. he got choked up over:

• goodbyes to al franken show staff and guests
• soldiers in iraq dying from lack of supplies
• soldiers singing an army song together while hugging in iraq

anyway, i am feeling pretty sad. about that.

boy am i going to miss him. you can see his announcement of his senatorial candidacy at: www.alfranken.com. at first, i thought he seemed a bit smirky and that that could be trouble, but by the end of the video i decided it was a pretty good video. i'll probably volunteer doing clerical work for his campaign, and give him money, and stuff. after that, i'll get a life.

well, today we interviewed a girl named megan for an internship. she was young, bright, and naive. i felt like telling her all the horrible things in store for her, such as unemployment and horrific office social situations and loss of love.

last night dork club did not happen, since it's going to be happening on thursdays for a while. the people seemed alarmed by this and everyone came over anyway, and we played a new card game called "nuts," which me and taya won. i have to say, mostly me.

then everyone left except taya and kai and we talked about futures and grad school and i expressed my usual quite depressing forecast, which is that graduate school will be lonely and isolating and that the glory days will finally disappear for good, and that at some point it just turns into a weird thing to continue living with your friends in college-style housing.

taya and kai had more rosy pictures of their futures and of mine, and tried to dissuade me that the future will suck. i remain unconvinced. at least about the near future. for whatever reason, i project for myself a happy mid-life and later life, though a less happy 30s and probably a mildly unhappy later-life decline. so that my life would look like this with happiness on the y axis:

h h
h h h h
h h h h h
youth 17-26 27-35 35-65 65-80

youth was bad for me in a lot of ways.

[ed note: my beautiful chart above apparently gets messed up in the publishing process. please picture the hs spread out in columns neatly above each age range.]

i have been very busy at work and am kind of stressed out that i am in charge of fundraisers for the students going with us to nicaragua. as it turns out, i don't like fundraising very much. i don't mind organizing things and making stuff to sell and this and that, but i don't like the actual getting money from people part.

ok, in better news: i bought a latte this morning and reheated the second half of it just now in the microwave, and drank it, and it was good.

also, the dining services committee, of which i am now a member, is kind of cool because i meet with people that i work with in this office, and it is breaking down some glacial barriers that existed between us before.

my room is spotless and inviting at home. my laundry is clean and put away. i have been productive in a variety of areas in my life, and also have been going to the gym regularly. my bicycle is working, with zero flat tires, and two working lights. my health is good. but, today i feel sad in sort of an unspecific and possibly nonimportant way.

i am feeling stressed out at work

Holiday Party Extravaganza, Part II

The second and final installment of Holiday Party. Now in third person limited.

Holiday Party: Part II

The Mission

Had she taken notes? She certainly couldn't find any notes. But had she really not written anything down at all? That seemed too irresponsible to be true. Perhaps she had counted on storing every moment, every image in her mind, as if memorizing the facets of a well-guarded piece of technology in order to smuggle the design out of the workshop for later reconstruction. Alas, if she had purloined anything useful from that medieval basement, she did not know where she'd put it.

She remembered it had been cold out. She and her good friend Megan had walked down some stairs to an underground area where gathered was a cluster of Megan's co-workers. There was a bar on the left side of the main room, a fireplace straight ahead, and a dining area to the right. She remembered being greeted by a woman who resembled a bowling pin with a reddish-blonde perm. The woman was enormously tall, and both firm-bodied and comfortably corpulent. She was attractive, in a big business, newscaster sort of way. Her date had "totally ditched her," or so she proclaimed loudly several times. In the date's stead, was a pleasant-faced, short woman, who seemed like the type of loyal friend who would fill in for an absentee beau at the last minute. She remembered meeting another gigantic woman, this one, with the shape, and almost the complexion, of an orange traffic cone. Both of the enormous women wore high-heels, or so she recalled. She realized that she didn't know if they were both wearing high-heels, although she had told herself that at least one of them was intermittently threatening to topple over due to precarious shoe-ware. It didn't seem to matter though. She hadn't been there for them.

The story went something like this: her friend Megan had to attend a holiday party. The party was mandatory. Fun needed to be had. Merriment was obligatory. She was to accompany Megan—her attendance, as a guest of Megan, was also non-optional. Smiling, chatting, joking, nodding, mingling. These were the tricks of her trade. The slacks and dress shirt made for a modest disguise, but a disguise nonetheless. She didn't have much of a cover story. Her real name and occupation, she gave freely. The location place of residence, most definitely revealed. But she hadn't told anyone why she was really there. And now, she herself couldn't say why.

She certainly hadn't come for the food. At events like these, she normally ate herself into a cheese and cracker induced torpor. But she hadn't touched the mystery ball of fat and flesh that was the centerpiece of the snack plate. A few pieces of fruit were her only hors d'oeuvres. Later in the evening, she would consume more, but not with her usual exuberance. No, she had certainly not come for the food.

She met a woman squeezed into a blue, sequined dress. That's right. The head honcho. Megan's boss. How could she forget? This seemed to be essential, or was it a red herring? She remembered seeing the back of the famed individual. White-haired head swaying while sage advice was being dispensed to a rapt and impressed audience of two or three. Facing the woman, though, she saw that she was swaying with intoxication. "Aren't you sweet and cute," the woman said had to her, loosely letting her observations curl around to Megan's ears. Associate Director Megan's appearance and demeanor were apparently under surveillance by the Executive Director; later compliments by the latter would also prove to be underhanded criticisms of the former. Such as, "Megan, her haircut is so cute, why don't you get a cute haircut like that?" To which, Megan had responded with rage-filled cries of "I gave her that haircut! That's MY haircut!" In the end though, the flattery toward her seemed to be part of a game, a game for the grooming of a young apprentice. A game that Megan was important enough to be playing, but that she was not. She had done her role well though, and that was the key to winning her own game.

Megan, her boss, her boss' husband, and an older couple with whom they were friends shared the dinner table with her. The man of the older couple friends told some jokes. One went something like this: A man [Megan's boss' husband] goes to the doctor. The doctor says to him, "You have to start eating right, you have to start exercising, and you have to start having sex at least five times a week, or you'll die." The man tells his wife what the doctors says, he explains that he's made up some healthy recipes and found a gym. The wife [Megan's boss] thinks for a moment. Then she says to her husband, "I'm so sorry to hear that you're going to die." Guffaws.

Dinner began with dessert. Why not? Life is short, eat dessert first. And the tempers of hungry holiday-party-goers are even shorter, so you better serve them something if dinner's not ready yet. After the pineapple (or was it lemon?) sorbet, they waited. The whole time, Megan's boss made the others at the table give her their drinks, filling up her empty wine glass out of view of the bartender/server.

Throughout the dinner the boss had quietly delivered spoken messages to Megan's guest. The boss had said something about, well, something that had been hard to decipher. It had involved danger and intrigue. Child molesters? Suspicious people hanging out on the street? But she seemed to remember too that Megan's boss had said something about bagpipes. The comments had been abstruse, but were clearly rich with significance. After a quiet diatribe about the babies or Scotland or the swirl of hope and danger that confronted all of us each day, the boss had turned to her and asked: "Do you think yes or no?" The past middle-aged eyes had beckoned for the right answer. "Yes or no?," the plastered supervisor pleaded again, clearly there could be no equivocating or fence-sitting on this one. "Yes," the guest replied. "Good," said the wino, "thank you."

On the tails of the memory of that conversation, a shrill voice echoed in her head. Yes, a shrill voice had puller her closer. "Don't let her have any more!," the voice had said. "She's had enough." The same voice had screeched, "They're trying to kill me!" when her air supply tube had popped out of the tank. But this was the head honcho of the head honcho. Who, wheelchair bound and tethered to a mechanical oxygen delivery system, served as the ailing godfather (or was she a fairy godmother?) to the whole operation. This older lady was the older sister. She had apparently raised Megan's boss for the first ten years of her pre-Megan's boss existence. A fact that Megan's boss had not forgotten, and which was sweetly recounted at the dinner table. She remembered the boss declaring her profound love for her sister several times. This also seemed important.

The bathroom had been a portal to a separate world. This must have been the ad hoc headquarters where she and Megan could speak and reflect freely on their findings and on their own performances. This was where Megan told her that she had slipped up once—mistaking the crumpled drunkard for a humble and self-reflective soul. This was also where they had swapped analysis on all sorts of social victories and oddities. She didn't have any notes from these meetings, and now the meetings were over. The bowling pin and traffic cone had made it into the headquarters, but they didn't recognize it as such. As soon as alien laughter came through the door, the martini bar, the giggling flappers, the gents at the pool table were all swung to the other side of the rotating wall. They turned it into a warehouse at the drop of a hat, even when Eliot Ness was nowhere in sight.

"Time for the ornament exchange!" The ornament exchange, which followed dinner, was a battle of wits. Pick an ornament, someone steals it. Then someone steals from the thief, and the last thief keeps. She wanted to steal Peter's ornament. That bastard, he deserved it. Spider man, rainbow pinecone, Mickey Mouse, model airplane, springy snowman, homemade Kaluha, Santa crystal, snowflake crystal, abstract crystal. Peter lost, but not to her. With no chips thrown down—Megan had not been on the email list saying to bring an ornament--they left with a snowman, a pinecone, and some booze. Not bad.

The end of the night and some speeches were made. "Remember the elderly. You'll be old too some day! This is the one cause where you're really investing in your own future." Then the shrill voice interjected, "Go home and have great sex!" Some awkward, and perhaps a few knowing, glances were exchanged. The audience of drones had acted accordingly throughout the evening. Megan's boss was passed out on a chair. Later she would be passed out in the front seat as Megan and guest were huddled in the trunk of the car that would take them home. The older sister was most proximate to them, and had requested and received kisses from both. She thought she heard the older sister muttering in a fearful tone when no one else was around, about it being hard, and things of that sort. The older sister was brave.

Back at the house, she and Megan found themselves dizzy with the alcohol that hadn't been pilfered by Megan's boss. "That was awesome." "Couldn't have been better." She remembered the event to be disturbing (because of the automatons) and stirring (because of the more inspired ones). She had been privy to much, but couldn't quite put all the pieces together. Her mission, from what she could gather, had involved several sub-missions. To play it smooth, to collect information, and to see past the clutter. Had she done these things? Perhaps. It was all a jumble of fleeting memories now: some false, some true. All that was left was to write them down.