Dear Carolyn,

It's 2am and I'm hacking up a lung and not sleeping. No matter how lovely winter is, it doesn't agree with our fragile constitutions.

I can hear you laughing now. The only thing fragile about me is my eyesight. Otherwise I'm a damned battle-axe and proud of it. But I am laid out by this cold and it's making me quite miserable.

So 2am and Mollie is sleeping, I'm sick and my Kindle sits on the table just a slight reach away. Should I try reading? Should I try writing? I know I won't be trying to sleep any time soon. Heck, I have the line edits due on Sugar (oy) and you know how I'm looking forward to that.

I will try to write a bit but I'll probably end up reading. I'm not reading any of the million of romances on our Kindle or even the literary fiction. Right now I just want to read about woman and food. I'm afraid to eat when sick like this for fear of nothing staying down but I devour the books like they're the nourishment I'm missing. The stories are the author's but also they become mine somehow. I relate to food writing in a basic way that's inexplicable but oh, so deeply satisfying.

Funny how we share so many reading tastes but this is all my own. You love your werewolves without me and I share these women's stories in my orgy of gluttony.

I think one of the reasons this writing is so resonant for me is because it is almost like eating. I read slower when I read non-fiction and I savor the words more. When women write of food I slow down and apply the stories to myself. I have chopped, kneaded, savored and sauteed. My hands feel the dough, my senses recall the scents and tastes. I'm flooded by the words in levels of experience and pleasure.

Oh here I am rhapsodizing about food. What's new with that? You might not be surprised to hear that the first thing I did when I came home from work sick was make a pot of chili. I just needed to smell the chili powder and sweet onions cooking. It made me feel just as good as a nap did.

Well ... 2:30 am now and I'm thinking about baking. I won't be able to eat anything but it would make me feel wonderful in its own way.

I'll talk to you later today dear when daylight is on us.

Lori