I leave the pharmacy, wiping off snot with my sleeve, my head stuffier than a high-school locker room. I carry nose drops, antihistamines, and the good decongestant for which I must flash my driver’s license because lesser meth cooks than Walter White use it as raw material.

First, be antisocial. In kindergarten, when the teacher asks you to share crayons and play nicely with the other children, don’t. There’s no point. You don’t want to be friends with these fools who pick their noses and use their booger-smothered fingers to touch your back when you all play tag at recess. In fact, make sure you don’t play tag at recess.

She was Pocahontas in her school play this year. “Because I’m dark,” she told us. Her hair is black and hangs straight down her bony shoulders. Her hands are small and soft as she pulls me through the hall.

Mariella. She’s my blood and two years older so I listen.

On this day, I had reached the limit of my tolerance. It had gone too far and I now felt compelled to express my disdain for the ubiquity of cheese that has spread like a noxious malignancy throughout our culinary culture. Yes. You heard me. CHEESE! Fromage. Parmesan. Pec-er-ino roman-o. Cheddar. Prov-a-lone. Monterey Jack. I spit out these words like profanities.

My brother Jim called to tell me he was about to bid on a 50-acre island in the middle of the Illinois River.

“We want to scale down,” he said. “Do the Thoreau thing. You know—Walden Pond.”