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7 Making Ends Meet 1. a sobering thought between the leeway of dried ink on bogus checks written and cashed 2. how they bounce without an eyelash blink or a pass over some cashier’s desk 3. everything counted out in cyberspace a quantum leap leaving no balance 4. between what you want to eat and what may be left to eat—everything falls 5. dollars faster than your temperature (in the Bering Strait it’s said women last thirteen seconds longer in frigid water 6. all the fat falling between this and that between heaven and what has left the body on shore) 7. what life is worth more in the red, in the black and on the wrong side of who gives a damn (the GNP has fallen alongside the dollar 8. and a cash register waits at the end of altruism)—what’s in it for you 9. retiring faster than nobody’s business the mystery is what gets you 10. the weather that fails you and hurls flotsam and jetsam like pureed cereal down your new shirtfront 8 11. damn-it-to-hell it wasn’t supposed to be like this, you staying afloat at the edge of a sunset too bright to be real 12. when did you last check the actuarial tables, the sink or swim of it all the last breath you dare to take ...

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