In a small fiction workshop run by my father, I have been asked to write a thriller. The story I produce, typed out in single-spaced Courier font on a bundle of typewriter paper, makes me proud. But as I compare it to his, I find dozens of typos and a crippling tendency toward the abstract and the prolix. He had started by describing the quality of the light pouring out from a crack in the door of the backroom in the House of Commons where the two protagonists seal their own fates; I started with a plot summary. To atone, I get a haircut. The hotel salon is short-staffed so they have to call in that girl from astronomy class. Her scissorwork on my scalp I can only describe as "soigneuse." As I tip her five dollars—quite generous, I think to myself—I am overcome with a wave of unspeakable desire.