Going Inkless

     It was some time around 2am on Saturday morning, and I was sitting on a hospital bed with a needle in my arm, waiting for a nurse or doctor to return.  We were at the emergency room in response to a crisis that turned out to be less life-threatening than I feared but frightening nonetheless.  Me, asking to see a doctor.  You know something had to be wrong.  So, we were sitting there at a calmer moment, and my husband reached into my backpack that he had filled hastily on our way out of the house and pulled out my notebook.      "How are you going to use this one in Ullen's story?" he asked, smiling.  This was one of those moments when it became absolutely clear that he is perfect for me.  No socks in the bag, but he brought my notebook.      I told him I doubted this particular event would work with that storyline, following a weaponsmith who had fallen on hard times in his pseudo-medieval fantasy world....

There are a hundred stupid little rules in our house.  Our son declared this the other day after learning the drink he had left open in the fridge had been discarded.  The no-open-drinks-in-the-fridge rule had been instituted (or rather, re-instituted, as it has come and gone in our house before) after too many times the fridge needed emptying and scrubbing when some forgotten cup of stale, sticky pop had been knocked over.  Warnings were declared just a few weeks past, so when the open can of iced tea glared at me one morning as I opened the refrigerator door, I promptly removed it to the sink.  Following a conversation with my husband, the half-filled can was poured out.  Having been warned of the consequences, he reasoned, our son's open drink was forfeit. Our son wasn't too happy about that, and protested when he was reminded of the rule.  He was frustrated at what he perceived as all the unimportant things that he's required to take seriously. ...