there was a page missing at the end of chapter four, before chapter five. it didn't really seem that important; there wasn't an abysmal gap between the sentence that left off After leaving the park behind... and the bold heading of the fifth chapter. but regardless, she felt like she was missing something, even at the end when everything resolved cleanly.

her perceptions were often misguided though. during the time she kept a daily journal, she felt like it didn't do any good at all. it was just strings of whining and complaining filed neatly on lined pages. but a year later she read back through her old entries and while a lot of the pages were laundry lists of various frustrations, she gleaned all sorts of passing comments that cut right through everything else, trimmed it all clean, showing what was really going on during that time. she thought maybe she could take just a few pieces of paper to transcribe all those near brilliant moments and whittle her jumbled thoughts down to what mattered---unfortunately the isolated phrases would mean nothing on their own.