Ta French lessons, go swimming a lot, buy Langston Hughes books, get high, hire a girl once a week to take care of your clothes (sew, clean, organize closets), find a psychiatrist, a Spanish babysitter, take dancing, find shoemaker, write Hazel Scott, find yellow pills, buy books a friend told me about, stop abusing Andrew.

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—	Nina Simone, from a list made to herself (written on Air France letterhead), 1965