The sides are mirror images of each other—symmetrical. All these graphs on our calculus homework are familiar to me from ninth-grade geometry, but they’re fun to do again. Symmetries galore. I touch my lips. They are symmetrical across a vertical axis. Symmetry is part of beauty. Experiments prove that; when presented with pictures of faces, people invariably find the symmetrical ones most attractive. I read about that in sixth grade, for a school project on birds. Animals turn out to care about symmetry, too. Female zebra finches choose mates with symmetrically colored leg bands. And beauty has a halo effect: attractive people are also judged to be more intelligent and better-adjusted. They’re more popular. So beauty matters. At least in most people’s eyes. Undoubtedly in Joshua Winer’s eyes. I’m getting blue again. None of that—back to graphs. I like asymptotes. I don’t remember if we learned that word in ninth grade. If we did, we didn’t make a big deal out of it. But Ms.
