The writer may say she lives for art but notice how she doesn’t say another word about how that manifests itself in her life. What kind of art does she do (or want to do)? How much time and in what way does she work on her art now? Does she have a studio? What does she plan to do in the city, art-wise, that she doesn’t do now? Is her goal to sell art (if so, what has she done to build a portfolio, contact galleries, line up art fairs, whatever)? Does she have artist friends or belong to an art support group? Aren’t these important enough to mention when seeking advice about how to change your life to make art more possible? Or is she just good at singing “vissi d’arte”?

Among my artist friends, many have day jobs and many don’t. It’s hard to tell the difference from looking at their art, because even those who fit art into their evenings and weekends work at it seriously and passionately. In fact, I know artists who have contemplated giving up their day jobs to work at art fulltime and have rejected the idea –- it’s easier to pay the bills with the day job and then come home and make art unencumbered with the hassles of selling it.

On the evidence in this letter, I wonder if the writer spends more time talking about how cruel life prevents her from doing art than she does actually doing art. If so, the big city isn’t going to be markedly different except for no boyfriend and higher rent.

I wonder what kind of relationship the writer would like to have with her parents. Sounds to me like the daughters may be having issues of their own with being grownups rather than kids. They call Mom and get unhappy because Mom doesn’t want to talk about ME!! She wants to talk about HERSELF!!! How dare she!!!! And she had the nerve while babysitting (unpaid, I’m sure) to do something that they didn’t approve of!!!! Sounds kind of narcissistic to me. Part of becoming an adult is recognizing your mother as a person with her own life, not just the eternal mom focused only on you.

Maybe the next time the writer calls Mom she should listen more than talk and try to figure out what’s on Mom’s mind. Or when Mom complains that her children hate her, say something like “why do you say that?” – and listen to the response. She might ask Mom what kind of behavior she would like to see from her daughters, and examine herself as to whether there’s any truth to the complaints. Maybe Mom would like to be taken out to lunch, as one of the previous posters suggested. Maybe she would like to be off babysitting duty. Maybe she would like somebody to occasionally take Dad out for lunch and leave her alone in the house for a couple of hours. Maybe she would just like to talk on the phone without the subject always having to be the daughters. Who knows!

If Mom is depressed (and that sounds reasonable, from the description) she sure isn’t going to be cured by a confrontation, especially a confrontation where the ultimatum is to stop behaving this way. Maybe if the ultimatum were to go to a therapist it could be helpful, but I doubt that as well. Maybe the daughters ought to go to a therapist and get some helpful hints on how to proceed.

Only in America do we get our knickers in a knot over the inconsequential symbols of our country. People in other countries don’t worship their flags the way we do, or have pledges of allegiance that take on cosmic importance in federal court. Now it’s the national anthem. Give me a break.

If we got one-tenth as agitated over the REAL essence of our nation as we do over these stupid symbols, this would be a great place to live. How about some national angst over freedom of speech or constitutional checks and balances?

I am shocked –- shocked!!! –- by plagiarism as much as the next person, but calling it plagiarism to use the words “ran into the fire” to describe a guy who ran into a fire is ridiculous. What would the guy have had to do to avoid being called a plagiarist? Said “perambulated rapidly into the conflagration”?