Since I was old enough to begin to fathom adult conversations and adult laughter, I have been fascinated by the dinner party autobiography that condenses years into a few humorous words and makes every life of a certain length an adventure. The gaps in these stories, starting with my parents' occasional allusions to their life BC (Before Children, my dad would say with a laugh), have always been deliciously incomplete. When a partner does not provide details about the day's feelings, or when a friend describes our weekend trip inaccurately, I become distressed and obsessed with truth. Tonight, when a woman who offers me food me some Sundays described her twenties in Paris--he followed me there from Africa then London before my brother was jailed and we fled to Canada--I delighted in the gaps and approximations. When I was seventeen, I left my home country because I anticipated I will want an entertaining life summary. Biographies of great dead men do not make me laugh in amazement, sometimes without knowing why, so much as stories of self.