Sometimes, if you want to be happy, you've got to run away to Bath and marry a punk rocker. Sometimes you've got to dye your hair cobalt blue, or wander remote islands in Sicily, or cook your way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year, for no very good reason.

Physically it's exhausting to cook every night. Existentially speaking, I have so much more energy having that time to myself in this project, this gift to myself at the end of the day. Even if it didn't go smoothly, it was still a gift.

Maybe I needed to make like a potato, winnow myself down, be part of something that was not easy, just simple.

There are times with your friends when you just have to put their whole mess out of your mind for a while.

The blog is certainly another tool for writers out there to break their way in. But being a blogger does not make you a great writer.

You can never have too much, butter.

So the end may be a long time coming, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a way of sneaking up on you.