Before I began work, I would spend most of the day pacing back and forth, planning a meal in my head to pass the time. I would begin cooking around four or five, while Morgan was painting in the studio, and Des and the baby hung around in the kitchen. We tried out different plates and arrangements, light fixtures and camera angles. Certain there was something there that we just needed to crack.

Now-a-days, I get home from work around 7:30. Right around the time my nephew is going to bed, when Morgan has finished in the studio. We’ve gotten a sort of routine. My sister is able to relax for the first time all day. The three of us sit around the small wooden table in the kitchen, while I get up occasionally to stir a pot or cure some chicken thighs. Eventually, I’ll move my post to the small counter space next to the stove where I do all my prep.

We’ve gotten the photo-shoots down to a science, usually just a four or five minute interlude. We take our dinner around 9:30-10PM, fabulously cosmopolitan of us, if you ask me. Usually straight to bed after dinner, as we are all early risers. Well, actually, the baby is an early riser. So we are all early risers. Bed means different things to all of us. Des sleeps in the baby’s room, so that she can nurse him throughout the night. Morgan sleeps in the master in a pile of two dogs and snores so loudly I can hear it through the walls sometimes. I usually retire to the “guest” bedroom which is actually my sister’s bedroom, although she hasn’t been using it since the arrival of Aubrey. I spend the late evening writing or editing or attempting to do so, before deciding it is a hopeless endeavour and falling asleep next to a leather notebook and an open laptop with the desk lamp still switched on.

The mornings are when I get the most work done. On the days that I skip the gym, I sit at the kitchen table and I’m awarded an early morning clarity that allows me to skip through the usual process of writing down thirty ideas and then crossing out twenty nine of them. I never thought I would be able to hold a writing job since I’ve always done my writing at night, usually with a pack of cigarettes and some sort of alcoholic drink within reach. But now, the mornings are most productive for me, and they are only interrupted by the fact that I still have to go to a job and work for money to live. What a fucking drag.

This ‘Late-Night Jambalaya’ is a quick version of the classic cajun meal. A just-got-off-work-and-the-baby-is-finally-asleep version of the classic cajun meal. We kept the rice on the side and added a roux to expedite the whole process. Also, a glaring lack of okra is the result of not having the forethought to buy okra and also not having anywhere to buy okra. While we were eating, I mentioned that I backed the heat up, as I doused my food in Valentina. I usually prefer my cajun food to be extra spicy, but I backed the heat up on this one, after Morgan’s comment that my Thai Laap Wraps tasted like heartburn. Morgan reached over and grabbed the Valentina, “I didn’t say that was a bad thing.”