Writer's Block: Young and driven

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It's 21. I think that's too high. You can legally be in combat in the US armed forces in a war zone at 18, but can't legally have a beer to celebrate surviving another day. WRONG. And that is way out of touch with most of the rest of the world. But the reason it's so ridiculously high in my country is that we are very automobile-dependent, with very little public transportation that really works in any but the very largest cities. Drunk driving is a really terribly high cause of death here - I understand and respect any attempt to reduce that.

So, because our driving age is 16, there was a lot of lobbying on behalf of parents to find something to blame for all the tragic deaths. I can't blame them. But, all things considered, I really believe that the DRIVING age and DRINKING age should both be 18--and there should be lots of practice in both allowed throughout the teen years. And there should be a lot more investment in public transit so that driving is not the only way to get home ever from...anywhere in the world, if you don't live in a dense old-school city.

(My personal perspective: I do live in a dense city with 19th-century infrastructure, and haven't had a car in 16 years--and I LOVE IT. I would never want to live somewhere I HAD to have a car.)

I has a critter.

Madimi may be almost five years old, but the kitten-fu is strong with this one.

Her favorite game is "Cat in the Bag." It doesn't matter how much I spend on pricey cat toys, as long as there is a cheap plastic store bag lying on the floor, that is ALWAYS where she'll spend most of her time.

She buries her face in the corners and licks the inside of it. She crawls inside and turns into a lump and sits there happily for hours. She pounces on it from across the room. She attacks my feet from inside it. She goes apeshit if I gently poke the bag-lump with a stick. She squirms around and makes little joyful squeaky noises when I pick up the bag by the handles and swing it around.

Rinse, lather, repeat for days until the bag is completely shredded and I have to bring home another one. So yeah, it looks like I have trash on my floor. But it is NOT trash. It is Madimi's treasure.