Some of the substances can not be classified as completely legal, but in that case I just simply refuse to use any sort of classification system at all. Or I complicate the classification hopelessly by adding elements that don’t belong. Ingredients, for instance, that come from overseas, testimonials that go on for pages and don’t really manage to say anything definite other than that someone has taken the time to compose the testimonial and he is now probably looking for a similar line of work so as to continue to influence the outcome of decisions being made on the other side of the globe by people he will never meet. Or if he does happen to meet them, it will be under entirely separate circumstances and no one, including the author of the testimonials himself, is liable to make the connection. I barter for my portion with whatever I happen to discover in the garage or the attic, and if I am lucky, something priceless comes my way because I have chosen to branch out beyond my own garage or attic and have made my way into those belonging to other people. I am not adverse to scaling trellises or jimmying windows in the middle of the night, though this can get hairy sometimes when whoever resides there is still awake and watching a film about a Korean serial killer or working on his memoirs. I try to explain myself at exactly the same time as I am turning on my heels to flee because this will confuse whoever it is I am facing and give me a moment or two’s advantage. Which, so far, at any rate, has made all the difference. I frequently wonder what would happen should I run up against someone utilizing the same technique after I have caught him slipping in through one of my own basement windows. Will I see it coming? Will I know instinctively how to react and manage to apprehend the intruder before he disappears again into the night? Sometimes, in these situations, the moon is a brilliant accomplice and you simply have to know how to use its light to your advantage by studying the moon’s movements and the different shapes it assumes at different times of the month. To this end, I spend hours each day pouring over charts and ancient atlases, information handed down by generations of amateur astronomers for the sole purpose, it seems, of making my life easier. But it rarely works. After all that, I no more recognize what I see in the heavens from one evening to the next than I do the facial features of the strangers who pass me in the street when I am headed in the general direction of my favorite diner by the river. A place where they serve veal on Wednesdays, and, believe it or not, it is very reasonably priced.