I set out to be misunderstood, and I was. What happened in the meantime?

I don't rightly know. My knees started aching. And I was asked to name a writer I'd like to meet. He or she had to be famous.

(The only writer I could think of was dead; his book survived him.)

I named the book first, then the writer. The Way We Live Now, I said, by Anthony Trollope.

Nobody seemed to know what I was talking about, but several people tried to help me. Though I wasn't sure whether they were helping me or I had helped them.

One of them knew Trollope is a novelist. Two of them were interested to know more, and one of those two took notes.

I tell all seven of them that Trollope's book is 800 pages, but worth it. As they're accustomed to reading best-sellers, 800 pages is nothing. I'm almost certain I told them that the novel The Way We Live Now is so much like the way we live today that there are characters just like Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump and Fox News, and that all of them are living the way we live now.

I love them all; thank god they like having books around and that they read them and that they think of themselves as readers.

"Composition" (foil on mosaic), 8x8, mixed media . Collection of Mr. And Mrs. Basil Tree .