Crystal and I are functional again, and yet we are back to what we have always been, an imperfect match. Can we be perfected? Is there nothing which will sanctify this marriage? Why do the hoodoo mumblers have such a monopoly on sanctity? Do they? I cannot talk to Crystal about such things. She is temperamentally not compatible with my style of discussion on these issues. I can get only so close to her and then our psyches get in the way. I need some better mental tools to attack this problem, but I feel that in this arena I am something of a Robinson Crusoe, who must construct everything he has by himself, without the benefits of trade and division of labor and specialization. It is not as easy as Rand has implied. I know that in the case of Branden, she found herself blindsided by circumstances which she proved insufficient to control.