I am definitely more vain than I used to be. It’s easier to be vain when you look better, isn’t it?

Anyway, I try to keep it in check; in the end it’s all fleeting. Where I’m going with this though is that when one of my overseas friends — who is a total extroverted sweetheart — greets me on FaceTime, she almost always says, “You look so handsome!” And you know what, I’ll take it. No one ever told me anything like that when I was young. Quite the opposite.

I don’t know what she sees. Who knows what anyone sees when they look at another of us strange monkeys? But I know she means it and that my world is better because she’s in it.