I was absolutely serious about ballet but only for a short time when I was in high school. I fell in love with ballet when I saw still photographs of dancers in Look magazine, and I decided to take classes. I loved the purity of it, the simplicity: these are the steps, this is how you do them. And I loved the discipline. The students were so young, just kids, and they would work and work and work without knowing whether they were ever going to make it. I can get very bitchy when I have grad students who seem completely relaxed about their writing, this thing they supposedly care about and hope to make a career of. I say, I’ve known twelve-year-olds who put more into a ballet class than you’ve put into this story.