My god, I've gained onother age today. It makes me shudder. What a way to receive
my 65th birthday! For years, I wished I were an animal. Animals do not calculate their
ages by calendar. They'd judge my age by how I move, how I bark, how I smell. They
wouldn't judge it by my resident resistration like so many Japanese women. (June 24, 2003)
Excerpts from Rochester

Were I (who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man)
A spirit free to choose, for my own share,
What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal
Who is so proud of being rational.