The kids, both boys, were in good care. The younger was rather mellow but her first-born was hyperactive. The name on his birth certificate was Wayne (for Bill’s dad), but the family called him Sudden. He was always getting into trouble. And Virginia’s office was a perpetual challenge. She was in charge of six women who all worked for a property management company, and the problems raised by the tenants, as well as some from her own employees, would have challenged Solomon.

The office. She never would have picked her career. She always thought she’d write novels or teach (at college level). She fell into the financial district, temporarily of course, when she came out of Cal at 21. She meant to move on. She even tried half a year of doctoral work. But she was too old, then, for college speed. She soon discovered that a student only gets one shot at being an undergrad. And the ivory tower simply didn’t pack the punch of her deadline-driven, where-did-the-time-go, can-you-believe-that-asshole place of business.

Even after she quit smoking cigarettes (and admitted, grudgingly, that the prohibitions about indoor smoking worked, and made that terrible withdrawal possible for her), even after the benign little darts of breast pain made her cut back the coffee to three mugs a morning, still Virginia loved the rush of the office. They called her Vee there, and she was always in motion when around, moving from desk to desk with comments and answers, almost never in her own chair.

She made a point of not raising her voice. No matter how frustrated she became, she tried to speak calmly, in questions instead of declarations. But privately Vee judged her co-workers. In fact, she sorted, ranked, and graded them, like eggs.

Vee imagined a busyness meter. It was based on a simple accomplishments-divided-by-time formula. She had herself in mind as the standard, and she put only two of her colleagues near her level. Her gauge for the others ran from 35% to 80%.

No one knew about the gauge, but her co-workers intervened anyway. They ganged up on Vee one Wednesday at lunch, and they told her she had to slow down. They managed to describe her presence as so agitating to them that Vee understood. She agreed to the yoga classes.

They call her Virginia now. She’s calmer in the office. She drinks even less coffee. But she sleeps less too. She’s down to about five hours a night. Even without speed she has to watch herself or she cows the others. She’s only her own busy fast-living self now when she’s all alone.

And she’s not done yet. She had an epiphany recently (or, as she puts it, a penetrating glimpse into the obvious). She was remembering her undergraduate days and she thought of all the games of Hearts she played with friends: how addictive that was, how often she tried to run the cards… She remembered her refusal to learn Bridge, because she reasoned at the time that if Hearts were a problem distraction, Bridge would probably become a degree-killing obsession.

What the heck? she then wondered. Was that avoidance necessary? Isn’t she old enough, now, beyond breeding or nursing or operating heavy machinery, to risk eating tuna even if it’s loaded with mercury? And what about the market? She thought of all the years she avoided researching and trading stocks because she’d already concluded it would take too much of the stamina and attention she wanted to put to other tasks.

Virginia will soon decide to stop restricting herself. She already knows that she’s at her best in the morning. That’s when the markets open, when she can indulge in bursts of almost impulsive deeds, even if they are as sedentary as placing her fingertip on the computer screen.

Virginia will evolve into a solitary day trader (“dawn trader,” will be her phrase), and she’ll succeed at it. She’s even going to meet a few people through her enterprise. She doesn’t want to get ahead of herself, but she suspects that unrestricted she’ll be fine.