It’s never too late to follow a life’s dream, as writer Shelley Buck discovers.

All my life I’ve known I wanted to write books. But there were other things: a child, a husband, a house to buy, work to attend to, dirty dishes, even. Also, I’m shy, and even though I was a feminist, a journalist, and later a professor teaching writing, tooting my horn for my own needs came hard.

And then we moved to a boat. While there was plenty to repair, I wasn’t handy or good at it. Other family members took on these tasks. Living aboard a boat changed my perception of what a home meant: In a galley a quarter the size of the usual cubicle, there wasn’t much opportunity to do gourmet cooking. Dusting became easy in a salon living space of less than a hundred square feet. I couldn’t, even if I desired, shuffle the furniture around. Almost everything was built in. With only three plates and a handful of cups, there was little temptation to squander my days washing dishes. I walked the dog out on the wetlands paths, and while my son was at school, I wrote.

And eventually there was a book. I was working. It took time to finish and edit  up the book. Time to format it for publication, time to learn web design skills for promotion, time to find an editor, a community, and the encouragement to proceed, time to learn about eBooks and how the opportunity for online publication might streamline the process. I had been waiting all my life for permission to write. Now, I decided to give myself permission to publish, too.

And on November 6, 2010, Floating Point was born as an eBook. Floating Point was published in paperback on August 16, 2011. You can read an excerpt at ShelleyBuck dot com.

READERS: What are your dreams? What are you doing to get there?

Proposed legislation adding a public option to the health care legislation enacted earlier this year was  introduced July 21,  sponsored  by Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

HR 5808, introduced with 128 co-sponsors, would  require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to begin offering affordable health benefits as a public option as part of  health care exchanges beginning in 2014. Co-sponsors include, among others, California Representatives Anna Eshoo, George Miller, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, and Henry Waxman, as well as Barney Frank of Massachusetts, and Alan Grayson of Florida.

The bill calls for offering at least three tiers of plans, “including a low-cost plan without compromising quality.”

The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

It’s about time.

I have two pieces of information that I haven’t acted upon. A relative has indicated that she is now on Facebook. And so has a professional organization.

I haven’t heard much from the relative lately. I suspect there are more frequent communications on her Facebook page. But I haven’t looked. Suppose I “friend” her?  Will the writers’ organization I belong to then be treated to discussions of our extended family’s baby pictures?

Can I count on Facebook to keep these currents flowing separately?

Facebook pages are free and they are available worldwide. At a convention, I met Pakistani journalists, also using Facebook.  It’s great to have international colleagues, but I suspect we have very different feelings about a woman’s role in society. Should I share my history as a feminist editor-a history well-known to my friends? Or should I seek out some professional common ground without giving out quite so much information?

Facebook has privacy standards, but they are still evolving.  And so am I. I am still pondering which way to face in a world where all our faces are increasingly public ones. And as Facebook and other social media continue to grow, I am wondering whether that choice will even continue to be mine.

A friend tells this second-hand tale of a student seeking an internship: The organization the student applied to requested to see her Facebook page, then instructed her which entries to delete. Is some boundary being crossed here?  Should it be?

As a woman writer, will I pay an extra price when work and family mingle in public? Do I want family pictures, with children’s names and personal information, available on the Internet? What do I do about the college students I taught, who now want to “friend” me? Would they enjoy a funny snapshot of my dog Porschy fleeing the buzzing vacuum cleaner? Would the Pakistani colleagues?

The  “whole world” may have been watching at sixties anti-war demonstrations, but back then it was usually possible to go home afterwards. Which face do I face the world with nowadays, when the scrutiny can be 24/7?

Meanwhile, my high school held a reunion. And yes, I got more Facebook requests.

Perhaps I should grow a separate set of names to greet the faces that I meet. Maybe avatars are the solution.  I feel a twinge of atavism. I wonder if  Currer, Acton, and Ellis are pseudonyms that can be taken.

While I’m still deciding, I’ve tweaked my privacy settings again. Don’t look for me on Facebook. If you do, you won’t find me … um …  I hope.

Once again, a scant majority in the country’s highest court has handed down a decision on a subject the justices know too little about. They have decided what a person is. It turns out a legal filing– not a jolt of electricity in some Central Europe lab– can shock a stitched-together bundle of documents, capital, and lawyers into life, making a corporation into a person.

This is worse than a mistake. It’s hubris.

Even Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s 1818 horror classic regrets constructing his monster: “Would you also create for yourself and the world a demoniacal enemy? Peace. Peace. Learn my miseries and do not seek to increase your own.”

Think of a person that neither poops nor dies, does not need doctors or schools or diapers or houses, catches no H1N1 viruses, and does not wake these gowned officials up at night with teething or with adolescent woes: A person with a proper attitude toward money and authority. A person that’s all theory, no needy flesh, no messy bones.

Already a public relations firm, Murray Hill Incorporated, has announced its candidacy for Congress, according to the New York Times. On a campaign video, the company promises to bring “enlightened self-interest and corporate accounting to government.” The company says it will enter a primary election for a Maryland Congressional seat, according to its website. A statement on the website indicates the corporation plans to use “automated robo-calls, ‘Astroturf’ lobbying and computer-generated avatars to get out the vote.”

I imagine the move is tongue-in-cheek, but consider the possibilities: Maybe the Supreme Court will go further and grant corporations the ballot, perhaps limiting the rest of us to three-fifths of a vote apiece. Or perhaps do a 50-to-one reverse split and grant us even less.

All this makes me ponder: My dog Porschy is born in the U.S. She has rights, too. (She wants the right to bare teeth.) I am looking into incorporating her in Delaware. Votes for dogs!

P.S. See the Supreme Court’s decision.

I have decided that 65 is the new 30. Age 30 was a watershed.  Age 65 or thereabouts will be one too.