Last night while unpacking I found two Lorrie Moore stories, "How to Become a Writer," and "How to Be an Older Woman,"that I read I different parts of my life. "How to Become a Writer," I read in high school. It must have been touching enough for me to keep the handout. "How to Be an Other Woman" I read in a fiction workshop senior year. Chad Simpson handed out books at random from a stack and the book I received, "Self-Help," was seemingly perfect for me. I had a line from the book stuck in my head for months, though I did not realize it was from this story and just kept idly wondering where it came from, hoping to stumble upon it, which I did. The narrator starts making lists because the wife makes lists. This was my favorite list. A very applicable list. The bolded section is the part that was stuck in my head. My favorite part of this story is that I an not even an other woman and it still applies.

Clients To See:
1. Fallen in love (?) Out of control. Who is this? Who am I? And who is this wife with the skis and the nostrils and the Tylenol and does she have orgasms?
2, Reclaim yourself. Pieces have fluttered away.
3. Everything you do is a masochistic act. Why?
4. Don't you like yourself? Don't you deserve better than all of this?
5. Need: something to lift you from your boots and into the sky, something to make you like little things again, to whirl around the curves of your ears and muss up your hair and call you every single day.
6. A drug.
7. A man.
8. A religion.
9. A good job. Revise and send out resumes.
10. Remember what Mrs. Kloosterman told the class in second grade: Just be glad you have legs.

Number ten, I believe, is not talking about paralysis, the abilities to walk, but nice looking legs. I have nice looking legs. I am glad about it.