Dear Wigleaf,

One of the girl's fathers went on to become my doctor later in life, though I rarely remember that part of the story. It's strange, isn't it, what gets stored away, and what's discarded? The last time I set foot in my favorite record store, I found a praying mantis serenely stationed on the floor just outside the Rock and Alternative section. What was going on in my life at the time? What album was I there to buy? I remember only the creature, the hinge of its neck, the way the few of us stragglers who happened to be there on a Monday morning, in what felt like the last record store on Earth, gathered in a semi-circle around it in the moments before it was scooped up, in awe of its unlikelihood, its prehistoric strangeness. It wasn't all that long ago, but I was still insistent on buying CD's at the time. I liked the idea of something solid. Something I could hold onto. 

KIT,

Alyson