Go to sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat as the shampoo bottles say.I barely remember her name most days. Her memory is like a photo in someone else's house... Blond hair, blue eyes smiling up at me. But like those photos, I don't know her. I've never met her.The final papers came in the mail four years ago. I signed them and put them in an envelope with too many stamps. Not an absurd number. Maybe four. I stuffed the envelope in one of those big blue mailboxes so it the post office wouldn't lose. Soon others joined in laughing, even Tabitha. Amanda Jane turned from red to purple, I wondered, briefly, if she was breathing. That was how our instructor found us when he finally came to class. –~~– By lunchtime Tabitha was back to her sweet self. I would not have her any other way. She was laughing at her own anger, but mostly she was laughing at Amanda Jane’s ability to change color. Kaden and Stan were accompanying us. I took a look at everyone at the table and felt a profound contentment.. "You're not seeing your own jokes. Fuck is an expletive as well as a verb, maybe a noun too. If it was a catastrophe it would be a fucking catastrophe, i.e. catastrophic fucking." Sorry."June watched the stars for a while, pointing now and then to another shooter."Dan, some of this is bound to be painful. We have to expect that and we have to be good to each other through that." You're still way ahead of me." I know and some of the time you may have to tell me to stop. Sometimes I might have to. He didn't even care anymore. He took the bag and stuffed it intohis dresser. Calming himself, James took stock of the clothes he had left on the bed.A pair of jeans, thank god for Dad, a long black skirt, a few shortskirts, a few miniskirts, an array of tshirts and tops of various makes,some cardigans and sweaters. Well, he could live with that, he supposed.No coats though. A reason to wear his boy stuff, then. Comforted by thatthought, he started packing away the items.Finished with that.