I have never wanted children. Yes, I had baby dolls, including my beloved Pebbles who stuck with me through a terrible haircut, having her arm ripped off by my brothers, losing her clothes, and eventually being rehabilitated at the Doll Hospital in Bell Buckle at the insistence of my grandmother. But Pebbles was a doll, not a living child.

When I was around 3 or 4, before I entered Kindergarten, I became convinced that I would never learn to read.