I have just received one of my favorite emails of all time:

"I added the correct amount of water several agos ago ... The texture is running ...

What is it supposed to look like?"

For some reason, I read Laura's question as though she is asking me to speak to the uniqueness of life--why we can paint a pretty picture but cannot predict the weather--why she has expected one thing from life and found another--and now she has come to me with this final line as though she is opening herself up to discussing life in metaphors and analogies, strange questions that do not particularly pertain to anything in particular and sweet, sweet rambling.

I tell you people, I am in a great mood, Laura has seen to that--though I was quite assured of it before. There will be shouting tonight, dear people, shouting I say, and the pounding of fists on desks, already I wear the rings and soon I will wear the hat, I will stand on the porch and challenge the sky , I will open my heart to the bombast and the dirt; the dirty, dirty South in me.

This will be no time for tears, I gave those last night; to-day I will shout and start fires and celebrate that (he) which (who) has passed.