Ani Was Writing

  "Ani, you need to stop doing this to yourself." Amethyst sighs as she approaches my chair from behind. She seems my empty eyes glancing between a love journal, a livestream, and the emptiness of my own mind. Surprisingly, it is empty, given that only hours before it was cluttered with a to-do list of things I wanted to do before the end of the year. Most of it was decluttering and minimizing stuff. "You should get some sleep."   "I should." I intone.    "Then why aren't you?"    "No clue." I rub my eyes and watch the livestream for a few seconds. "I think I slept too much today."   "I think you haven't slept enough. Your sleep schedule might still be wacky." Amethyst eyes my Kindle as I delete all the alarms from it. "You know you only have one more day before you are supposed to start on your grand 2019 scheme, right?"   "Yeah, yeah."    "Just making sure. W...

  I sit rather calmly as I watch a friend livestream some Minecraft. He's playing with a new variation that's due out sometime after New Year's Day. He's fiddling with some design that I'm sure will be added to my own Minecraft world at some point.    "Those lanterns look like the ones we use in Ludum." Amethyst comments as she brings me over another cup of tea. The liquid swirls gracefully in its container as it gives off a perfume of tea and raspberries. I inhale two sips before I respond with a sigh and a glance around my desk. My notebook is bookmarked by a pen. Electronics and yarn clutter the rest of my desk where paper or writing utensils aren't claiming space. It is hard for me not to chuckle at the organized mess. Amethyst raises one eyebrow as she takes in  her own mindful drink of tea. The pot of tea sits between us as she clears a space to plot herself on my desk like some mockery of a femme fatale. "So, remind me why you forced yo...

  This will be short, I promise.   I was watching some food videos (as I do) to prepare myself for a life of meal planning and to give myself some variety in my planning. The longer I watched these videos, the more I wondered something...   What is with America and cheese? I think ninety percent of the recipes I watched had some sort of cheese added to them. Even something that was considered vegan or vegetarian had some sort of cheese or cheese variant. As someone who doesn't really care for cheese, especially processed cheeses, I don't really understand why cheese tastes so good to people. Sure, I like it with some things (like as part of a good grilled cheese sandwhich or cheesecake) but I am not sure why you have to put different cheese with things. A lot of food tastes fantastic without cheese!   If anyone else has any thoughts on this, please let me know. Cause I'm trying to get a sense of why America and cheese are so connected to each other.