Jane sits on the couch in the living room. It's blue, like the rug beneath the coffee table in front of it, and like the blankets I have arrayed around it. It's my old decorating taste - she wants to warm it up with orange. I weighed her offer yesterday, in blue jeans and a blue gingham shirt. Blue is a very soothing color, Jane's mom said.

While she sits working in there, I face a door-made-desk I stained blue in an office. Yesterday we discussed turning this into an eating room. Plans fly between our articles - as freelancers we've managed to pin ourselves to our computers for at least five hours of solid writing and research a day for the last week or so. If you don't have a boss, and there's only one water-cooler buddy, and they're working hard, you can get an enormous amount done in five or six solid hours. We eat yogurt and granola and toast and peanut butter until the evening when we have some nice meal with someone and then return to our computers for another hour or two of writing and correspondence. Occasionally we sit in the same room to synchronize our calendars. Times like these we're working quite well together.

She is emerging as a disciplinary force in my life. Demanding adherence to deadlines and a more focused approach to errands! But flexible still - yesterday she took off in the middle of the day to garden some while I continued being late for an article due. We're working on healthy eating, balanced living, and solid productivity. Yeah!

She's been working so hard lately, sometimes she doesn't even tend her other home.