Laura

July 24, 2025

Feb 22, 2026

This is another edition of my kitchen logbook straight from the vegan world, where anything can happen...

It was Grandma Lucia who bought me, certain that she was joining a visionary movement. But the family didn’t care, no one used me or got excited about my possibilities. Some time after Grandma’s funeral, they decided to take me out of the box. And what really made a difference was a tip that Egili followed: to make me visible and accessible, like a microwave. She bet on me, as if I were NASA in her kitchen. That’s when my popularity began. I became sought after in the family, and one of mine even became a Christmas gift.

I’m very practical, I have few buttons and they’re all labeled. Quite unlike humans, who know about one or two buttons they have because someone told them they exist. But they have no labeling. Instruction manuals? Lots! All fake. You can get some applicable information out of them, but so far no one has been able to put together a concise, official guide for these beings. Many buttons they don’t know how to use, or don’t know they have, they only begin to understand when there’s a problem. Not to mention the countless ones they can add and activate, but have no idea about.

To me, it seems that existing as a human being is to run the risk of going insane. I’m not saying it sounds bad, we all take risks. I also know what it’s like to have things inside you going through transformations, being exposed to different situations and full of possibilities to go wrong. But it’s not the same. The way the air circulates inside me and makes the fries crispy... And the way you dance with your fears, play with rules, traditions, and limits, and juggle your dreams and desires. Then, after all these movements, you secrete an expression of your essence. They and I are different, you see?

And don’t think it stops there. That part was about the process within them, but there’s more, much more, because they live in a group. The magic happens when they combine the mess they are with the unpredictability that the environment offers. It’s amazing: no matter how scary the movements inside you are, there will always be a space for you to coexist on this planet. You can be an 84-year-old Japanese man who can’t retire because his way of existing is drawing movies. Or a young Indian man, a family man, who doesn’t want to hurt himself or worry people, but his way of existing is performing by breaking glass bottles over his head.

(Egili interrupts)

— Look, Laura, we may not have a concise, official guide. But we know we need to embrace our strangeness, that which makes us unique, and trust the process. After all, it is diversity that makes our group strong.

— What time-space are you coming from, Egili?

(Laura ignores Egili for a moment and returns to speaking only to the reader)

She goes out and about and comes back with all kinds of perspectives... It’s always good to ask her where she’s been before.

— Oh, Laura! But what I’m talking about is already an old idea in humanity.

— Then I’ll bring you up to date! In 2025, this is not very well known.

— But change is underway! It’s a slow and steady process.

— I am fascinated by how your crooked path sometimes gives rise to good things. But look: we have all those disasters in the past and predictions of chaos in the future, right?

— Those are lessons and warnings. Regardless of our time-space, what we have is the present moment. All we can do is give our best now, and it’s always been that way. Whining now doesn’t mean whining in 2025, it means you’d be a whiner in 1888 or 3007. Whatever!

— Hmmmmmm... Here she comes with her time traveler talk.

— You need to expand your vision, Laura! Put yourself in different situations. Where are your exciting ideas? I’ll call you on 220 Volts next time!

— For God’s sake! I’m not dual voltage!