These words.

Children are playing at the end of the day
Strangers are singing on our lawn
There's got to be more than flesh and bone
All that you've loved is all you own

In a land there's a town
And in that town there's a house
And in that house there's a woman
And in that woman there's a heart I love
I'm gonna take it with me when I go


- Take It With Me, Tom Waits

in Julia's brain is

the lyrics to "Sweet Caroline"

the formula for linear regression

an inexorable hope for a benevolent God that she can't force herself to believe in

a decent recipe for caramel brownies

an intractable, latent fear of never understanding herself

a healthy amount of serotonin

controlled uncontrollable rage toward something or maybe someone

the notes in an A-minor scale

certain cyclical thoughts that go away less the more she tries not to think of them

a well-researched opinion on Affirmative Action

something that makes her see geometric shapes in her surroundings when she's nervous

the rules to double deck pinochle

an unacknowledged desire for hardships to befall her contemporaries

two good stories about getting really drunk in college

an unsettled feeling she can't describe to herself

the directions to her dentist's office

empathy toward the less fortunate

a memory of her and her brother running through a sprinkler during her seventh summer