Time flies gracefully: My room, with its sconces and pink-flower wallpaper, with the fish-tank and the small computer, with no hole in its wall and no candle collection, blossomed: the lights grew brighter (and the buzzing stopped), the new computer was added, the fish-tank was replaced by a lava-lamp and then a new tank, made out of an old computer, and the sun rose. The Evil Neighbors cackled. Wall-to-wall carpeting was stapled in, the hole in my wall emerged, the wall-paper was changed and the sconces were removed. The television withstood The Honeymooners Marathon every New Year's Eve. My parents had their bedroom re-done and I stole a rectangle of their carpeting to serve as my doormat. Cats marked their territory. My train-pass collection prospered.

With all the additions to my room, all the changes, I felt even more at home in it. In the time that I...