You know that scene in Running with Scissors when Augusten and Natalie are sitting in the kitchen, and Augusten says, “I need high ceilings” and Natalie replies, “Me too.” Well, despite my tendency toward agoraphobia, I need my high ceilings also. It’s not really the open spaces that disturb me, but the people in them. You never know what they will say or do, or what mood they’ll be in. They’re so unpredictable; unlike a train, for example, which is most often on time. And they’re always carrying around so much baggage, the people that is, and not the train, which carries a much more tangible sort of baggage, the kind you can see. And I’m thinking now, that I’m very glad to have had my high ceiling last night, when you said such awful things to me, because, without it, I would have been crushed from the weight. Instead, those awful things are hovering up there, still, just below the white fan blades, and I’m wondering what to do with them, whether I should discount them as part of the debris you brought in, or whether I should hold them against you.

-Nettie Farris