askye, Vit. E supplements have been really helpful for my hot flashes. It doesn't help everyone, but at least it is inexpensive to try.

The first time another member of my writing group and I did the Writers in Residence thing at the Boyd House in So. Pines, they closed up shop at 5pm and left us alone in this enormous rambling old pile built in the early 1800s and added onto through the 1920s. They didn't let us know they were leaving, we just suddenly realized it was quiet. Too quiet. By then it was full dark. My compatriot (not the person you want to be marooned with) got the creeps so bad I agreed to go with her to "check the doors." The full length of two floors later, we realized that the ballroom *alone* had two dozen French doors, and even if they were all locked, they had multiple panes of thin, wavy antique glass a tap from a signet ring would shatter, if you couldn't blow the old locks open with a hard puff of breath. Altogether, there were more than sixty doors in the place opening onto the outside.

And at that point it was either sit up all night with a flashlight and a fireplace poker or say fuckit and go to bed.

We went to bed. (I did throw the bolt on my bedroom door, though. And the windows could only be reached by scaling a rain-wet steep slate roof)

It actually doesn't bother me at all to sleep in an empty house.

I find the sound of the residents moving around in their apartments comforting. Granted, I don't have tap dancers upstairs or hyped-up toddlers anywhere that I can hear, though someone apparently does smuggle in a baby elephant to chaise around the living room upstairs occasionally.

When it's too quiet I start wondering if the apocalypse has occurred and I just didn't notice.

Yes, a big part of the reason I have a roommate is to help me sleep better! When there's someone else in the house my brain attributes all noises to them. If they aren't home, all noises are clearly murderers come to get me.

I have cats for that.

Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between cats and murderers.

But if I can believe it's the cats I can get murdered peacefully without worrying about it.

Ugh, got an email containing a heavily edited piece I submitted last week and I don't want to deal with it. So stupid. I feel like a failure because of edits? Fuuuuck, I'm really getting ridiculous.

As an editor, I can tell you that you aren't a failure because of edits. As your friend, I can tell you that you aren't a failure, period.

Nora, Teppy is wise.