When I was two-years-old, legend has it my mother visited an old gypsy woman. How do I know she was old? My mother frequently visited old people; old grocers, old librarians, old friends... When you’re all-but-two, everyone is old--at least older than you.

     I know little about the visit beyond the outcome. In brief: My oldest brother was born under a lucky star, my middle brother destined to be a musician and myself, a writer.

    For some reason my mother, not one to pursue the supernatural, spiritual, or anything vaguely outside Wisconsin, chose to embrace these fortunes (perhaps believing it was better to embrace good fortune than ignore it) And though I was all-but-two and showing no signs of writing anything, save for some scribbles on the wall, from that moment on my mother introduced me as, “My daughter the writer.”