i'm a life member of Weight Watchers, though you wouldn't know it to look at me right now. I'm a recidivist, not criminal, not anorexic, but a slip-slider nonetheless. We are told at the WW meetings (much like AA meetings, I think, though I've never been to the latter), that the average person makes 250 decisions about food daily. Surely not the average person! Just someone who is obsessed with food? But most of us are, obsessed, I mean, one way or another. During my wet meditation every morning, that is, when I swim, I plan my menus, so that involves a lot of thinking and decision-making. I think not only of calories but also of leftovers. I take inventory of what's in the fridge and freezer and what has to be used before the expiry date - the food's, not mine. Coming home to an empty larder after so long away presented further problems of time and money, but I still had leftovers that i was grateful for, food I had thrust into the freezer just before I left. As some people know, who know my history, I am the leftover queen. My second cookbook after the leftovers one was about cheese but of course I couldn't resist including advice about using the leftovers from whatever recipe I was doling out. The book was illustrated with pen and ink drawings. After he had finished reading the book, the illustrator made a special page for me: pictures of rotting food, with mold or cobwebs or a miasma wafting above it indicating the smell. Very funny. It was, actually. I come by my respect for/obsession with leftovers honestly. My brother used to say he wished he was around when my mother served our food the first time around. He was, of course, but he couldn't remember what it started out as. (Now there are two good prepositions in a row.) All I'm saying is that if you fuss about the calories and try not to waste food and also use up the leftovers, all that activity can easily add up to 250 decisions a day. And that's just the beginning. What are you going to think about now? I have to swim now, and decide what I'm going to eat today. Bon appétit.

This is my last day in The Stegner House , October 28. Please note. I have come up with, or dredged out, the first draft of a new book. I'll let it cool and see what I have. First drafts are like gouging out your bone marrow - especially with plays - but after that it takes patience and Zen to do the rewrites. You know that Zen saying: if you meet oh, who? who is it you meet? I have to check that - anyway, if you meet it/him you're supposed to kill it, because it's false. This is not what I intended to say. I just want to say á bientôt. It's a trek back to Toronto and I'll be without WIFI for four days. Not sure if I'll plug in on the fifth day when I arrive home. The tramlines are going to start running again and I may not get to Google or Safari or any of my other lines. So it will be a while. Will you miss me? Not bloody likely. POSTNOTE; I looked it up. It is the Buddha, it is the Buddha! I thought it was but I hesitated to say it. So kill your darling when you see it. That's good advice to writers who tend to fall in love with their own purple prose. Buddhism is supposed to be a path to enlightenment. - not THE way, as I understand it, but a way. Which takes me to Kahlil Gibran: "Say not that you have found the path of the soul; say you have found the soul on a path." Something like that. I'm not going to look it up. Do I have to do all the work? It's in "The Prophet".

I actually wrote this on my last morning in the house before I was out of range on the bus, in the B&B, on the train, before I got home to my very own WIFI. I don't know why the date kept changing. This is old stuff. Anon, anon.