But if I found a solution, I will not now think of myself X number of years into the future. I am painting a portrait of myself and portraits are not painted by one stroke with a brush. And so, I am taking it easily. I start with the little things in my life, the little things, and I change them to make them conform to the portrait of the being I am painting of myself. I started with a simple thing. We have a cat, or we had a cat, and it simply clawed up the entire rug. All the rugs were simply pieces of felt, all torn up. And so, we delayed buying a new rug. Really, said he, we were hoping that she would die. After all, she was fifteen years old and she seemed determined to outlive Methuselah. But because she still was very healthy and she didn’t die, we bought the new rug and right away, she started all over again to tear up the rug. And for two days, I said something must be done in my imagination. I had proved it with the producer. So, I went to work in my imagination and saw this cat in the backyard tearing up a mat that we had in the backyard for just such a purpose. On the third day, she was out in that backyard, clawing the mat until the day she died, she never once tore up our rug.671 ¶24