“I don’t put my name and address on the return address section of an envelope. I simply write “Surprise!”

“I addressed the scribes directing, speaking over his head. "History is merely a list of surprises," I said. "It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again. Please write that down.”

“Parker fixated on the envelope's precise penmanship as she lifted it. Her grandmother rarely took the time to write her own name in the return address, let alone give it the aesthetic attention that this one so seemed to demand. Once, when Parker questioned her on this, her grandmother casually asserted that she "didn't quite believe in envelopes" as if this were a debatable concept like Socialism or wearing white after Labor Day.”

“Titles are public. They are for others to notice. I expect others to address me according to my titles, but I do not address myself with them-- unless, of course, I address myself as an other.”

“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”

“I have let things slip, a thirty-year~old cargo boatStubbornly hanging on to my name and address.”