Valerie Mangion         

Wednesday, March 7, 2001 This morning we drove to Rockbridge to buy more sawdust and shavings at the sawmill. As soon as we pulled away with our full truck, we heard an ominous clanking sound. We pulled over and discovered the muffler hanging down on the ground. We had no choice but to let it keep clanking against the pavement for fifteen miles or so, until it finally fell off right in front of our pole shed. Driving home in my ancient, tiny, rusted truck, front held together

(Today is my birthday, so it's fitting that I opened to a passage about my mother.) April 9, 1999 I'm so angry with my mother. She's such a snot. When we were hanging out in her room Sunday, I said "Mom, think of me. All my sisters will probably die before me, Ellis will probably die before me...what am I going to do? "Well," she said in a mean, sing-song voice, "You'll have to live in a nursing home." She said it gleefully, like ha-ha, ha-ha. "Right," I said, "and who will b