QUOTE : against the walls of the machine. After being slid in, I began to feel the first tremors of panic. In an instant, my world had gotten a lot smaller and darker and weirder. It seemed inevitable that in moments I’d be squealing for someone to get me the hell out of there and flailing my limbs (though to little effect, because one can only move so much in an MRI scanner only fifty-five centimeters wide). But just as quickly as the panic came, it vanished upon being lulled into boredom by the groan of the scanner. After two hours, the technologist pulled me out pink-faced and squinty-eyed. I sat on the scanner bed for a moment, trying to reorient myself to real life. That was awful. I told myself that I’d never do another MRI session, but after she handed me $50, I found myself asking how to sign up for more. I also interviewed to become a tutor at an inner-city elementary school for a work-study program called America Reads. I showed up in my least-wrinkled dress shirt and a pair of slacks that I’d worn