Going Inkless

I've gone vegetarian, and I'm taking my family with me. Not full time.  Not vegan.  Just meatless for one day a week, and it's probably not for the reasons you're thinking.  I'm not generally a big meat eater to start with.  I have my occasional carnivorous moments, but for the most part, I prefer to keep the meat on my plate as an accent rather than  a focus.  In the past, I  have chosen to avoid meat on days when I wanted to eat lighter or simpler.  Vegetarian dishes often fit that bill.  But it's not always easy.  There's planning involved, and you have to be more aware of ingredients in prepared foods.  Picking vegetarian options at a restaurant can be tricky, and your family's not always on board with a home-cooked vegetarian dinner.  They didn't sign up for that; so, there's a little guilt involved in serving meatless meals.  When I proposed to make one day a week meat free, I expected some resistance from my husba...

     I feel as if I have lost an awful lot of sleep in the last few years, as if catching up on it all would put me out for months.  Sleep in my teen years was feast or famine.  Which side of the covers I was on was decided by what was spinning in my head at the moment, the phase of the moon, or how much coffee I had consumed that day.  It was nothing at all for me to stay up all night writing, down in the basement bedroom I shared with my older sister (then, later with my next youngest.)  I might read long hours into the night as the rest of the house slept if the mood struck me.  On the other hand, each Sunday was chiefly divided between sleeping until about 1 pm and doing my laundry (which later sat in piles-sometimes folded- at the foot of my bed until they found their way into the hamper again.)  Except for the commitment of school, my time was mostly my own, flexible enough that I could stay up or sleep in as fit my mood or creative cyc...

     I had my first chest x-ray recently.  Although they found none of the heart issues the doctor was screening for, they did discover mild signs of emphysema.  My doctor assumed the damage had been done before I quit smoking and seemed unconcerned that it would get any worse.       Only, I have never smoked.      Not even a puff...of anything.      So, the conclusion is that I was affected by second hand smoke, assumedly because I grew up in a house with smokers.  It's a stunning fact, especially because I haven't really spent any significant time in a smoky environment since I was 18.  That I could still be damaged by it decades later puts some weight into the arguments against smoking in public places.      I suppose I could be angry at my parents.  Given the availability of information, they probably knew smoking was bad for you when they started.  However, the news about...

     I was going to be a baker.  That was my sensible, practical plan for keeping myself fed while I wrote.  I was well aware that authors who could support themselves with their craft were rarer than authors with talent, and if I was going to build a life where I could write all I wanted, then I would have to have another skill people would pay for.  Since I always liked cooking and baking, it seemed like an ideal solution.  It was all still art, but it was practical art, everyday art with immediate use.  People would always need to eat.      Of course, I learned all I could in our own kitchen and read scores of cook books in our collection and the library's.  I would experiment whenever I could, took all the classes the school offered, and added two years of more focused vocational training.  The typical teenage jobs flipping burgers and making pizzas were serious business for me.      Starting a famil...

     One of my sisters can juggle.  She may not be the only juggling sister, but she's the only one I've seen doing it.  She does pretty well.  We're not talking about flaming knives level, but she's juggled all the usual less deadly objects.  She performs smoothly on her own or with a partner.  I've only ever been able to manage three items for a very short while, myself.  It's enough to get the idea of it, though.  To be successful at the feat, you have to keep moving.  You have to do what needs to be done when it needs doing, and any break in timing could undo the whole dance.      This same juggling sister once commented that she didn't know how I managed to juggle so many things in my life.  It was long ago when I was a young wife, taking care of a home and a child, working part time and trying to start a business, and at the same time, diving into several creative projects of my own.  It's done just ...