"Clean favored, and imperially slim" (click)

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I'm in the first quarter of Christine Lavin's autobiography, Cold Pizza for Breakfast. She's a good writer. In college she had a lively friend named Vickie who she lost touch with. A few years after university she tried to get her on the phone and the number she dialed found her with Vickie's mother on the other line. It was worse than awkward when the mother informed Christine that Vickie had committed suicide. Christine has this to say about the story:

(if you know how to get rid of the link or underlines please let me know)

"To this day it breaks my heart to think that such a talented, sweet, artistic beauty could take her own life. When you grow up plain looking, feeling invisible, you often think how wonderful your life could have been if only you had been lucky enough to be born beautiful. It's a smack upside the head when you realize how naive that kind of thinking is. Nobody has it easy."