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anne: seriously, how much can go wrong when you're

wearing underwear with cowboys and horses on them?

(silence)-

-anne: exactly. and if something does go wrong,

so what? just think about your underwear.

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I see this woman while I'm crossing the street, and it's one of those days when you can just tell what people are thinking. For example, I know on sight that she's craving the grilled corn that the vendor guy next to the bus is selling out of an old shopping cart, even though she won't look at it. I'm pretty sure that her name is most likely the French equivalent of Karen, and that she'd rather be reading something classic instead of going back to work. She turns and looks at me, before I have time to look away, and her eyes are so kind, and then she's off across the street and around the corner.

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I feel certain that she woke up this morning and noticed her face. She'd spent so much of her life young that it felt good to be wearing the sun across her cheekbones. When you are twenty-four you may or may not be a good woman- who can tell?- but now the sum of all her smiles is here on her eyes and her lips. Here are all her days, her witnesses. Female faces stare down at her from the walls of subway stations, their perfection disconcerting, but they are pale and angry and have no guarantee to match this.

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She placed one forefinger against the creases blossoming out from the corners of her eyes, absently, and smiled back at herself. I have lived, I am human, I can be trusted. I fear only one thing, and it is a holy fear. Girls wear makeup. It is only women who wear life.

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I would just like to say that I wholeheartedly agree.