I made a teapot.

Hosting “pirate camp” at a small lake with a great troop of Girl Scouts, who ran the pride flag up the pole right under the Jolly Roger.

“It’s Haagen-Dasz! We ride at dawn!”

Books. Absurd numbers of books. It’s my root cellar of survival backup dopamine, for when this data stream gets too hard to navigate.

You can always teach it to other people how to do the thing. On a good day it feels like the expansion of human knowledge and capability. In a bad day it feels like a pyramid scheme.

Smart woman. I was never vain about getting older but it sucks when the equipment starts to wear out. I have stuff to do before I’m 100.

My city grandma wore heels only until her bunions made her feet into triangles and the ligaments in the back of her ankle shortened and she had to get bedroom slippers with heels. Her fees were a horrible deformed version of Barbie feet, always tiptoe.

Also: ditch high heels. They might give you a pert posture and sexy wobble but you can’t fight or flee in them, and they ruin your joints as you age. Ancient Asian foot binding marked women as owned, helpless and unable to work, therefore prestigious. Not the goal. Walk, don’t wobble.

Wonderful grandparents are easy to adopt. Some never had kids, or have kids far away. Many are entering a lonely or vulnerable time of doctor visits, or caring for a partner, and need help. Scammers and tech can be bewildering for old folks and you could be truly useful, and loved, and accepted .

I feel honored to be part of your day. Sharing your journey is a kindness to the rest of us who forget there’s a timeline. You’re a memento mori on the timeline and a reminder to be present and not waste time.

For years, the best advice for artists and artisans has been “don’t quit your day job”, or “move to Canada”. No matter how wildly successful you were as a musician, potter, painter, sculptor, actor, before ACA you were one bad mammogram away from losing everything. Our culture is richer for ACA.