<p>And I didn’t know the earwig was alive until I squeezed the mop out in the sink for the second time. It had been floating in a dirty bowl when I’d done the dishes. And I’d thought “what a terrible way to go.” Drowning. In the panic of not having air, the one thing capable [&hellip;]</p>

<p>It’s like the entire world right now is a confrontation, for which within varying degrees of connection we’re all coming to see one another’s deepest vulnerabilities and sadness. And I’m trying to get ahead of it for my kids’ sake. Because I’ve worked hard to process my personal grief into the productivity of seeing the [&hellip;]</p>

<p>7/4/2016: Diary of a 4th of July Worked (all felines: Izzy, Jack, Piper, Clark, Lucy, Darko, Todd, Burt, Mica—love them all); Graham and Lauren come over, Ellen and Julia join, Ellen’s friend ending his Ramadan; foster kittens, hard lemonade, shitty Malbec, salsa, chips, guacamole, ohdeargodwhydidIeatsomuch; Ellen/Julia to meet her friend, Livy/Lauren go to that little [&hellip;]</p>

<p>I was kept up all night by Julia’s new dog whining and feel spit out so when the young man at Jiffy Lube in the greasy jacket with no nametag gazes up at the TV while casually sipping coffee and says “Kelly Ripa looks so good for her age. What is she, like, 50?”, my [&hellip;]</p>

<p>On October 17, 1989, I was riding my bike home from my Clinical Psychology class at UC Davis, looking forward to watching the Bay Bridge World Series Game 3—San Francisco Giants vs. Oakland A’s—on TV with my boyfriend, when the earthquake struck. The Loma Prieta earthquake. I didn’t even feel it.   The 5:35 game [&hellip;]</p>

<p>And it&#8217;s morning, and I’m walking Kora in downtown Salt Lake City, close to the big temple. It’s the last two days I’m sitting for her family because they’re moving to Park City so I am feeling that—saying goodbye to Kora as well as their cats, Twix and Breezy—and confronting the dynamic nature of life [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Today this group is headed to the Best Friends Adoption Center. We ended up naming them Salzburg, Linz, Wels, Vienna and Austria.&nbsp; Picked up on May 8th, from Best Friends&#8211;described as &#8220;5 shy-ish kittens&#8221;&#8211;one of them got so upset on our way home, they pooped in the carrier.&nbsp; We never have any real idea when [&hellip;]</p>

<p>(Written In memoriam to 2020 and All Time)   9/17/19: The dream was that [Someone I greatly respect and admire] and I were sitting at a rectangle outdoor table in a small private garden. A tree was to his left and he was across from me—sitting at the head of the table—and the sun was [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Come see me, Sophie, as you&#8217;re walking the blue twilight between worlds. Come see me, in that dream land, when the pain disappears and the body absorbs into stars, and we can behold the sun as it rises on this first new day. Come see me,From your world beyond breath, when the boldness of your [&hellip;]</p>

<p>I’m in my car, sweaty after a day of working hard, and surrounded by a bunch of shit like a mobile hoarder with a windshield so cracked it’s a Rorschach blot. And it’s the night I start reclaiming my ankles from the bloat shit-eating (from lack of time) has attacked me with so I’m headed [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Last night at the theater watching Mamma Mia again, my youngest, Livy, reached over the seat in a poignant part to grab my hand and in the dark I looked to her and her mouth moved in words of gratitude, telling me that, as a mother, I’d always been there for her. And as the [&hellip;]</p>

<p>I once read that “Om” is the sound that was made at the inception of the universe. That when the entirety of all things was somehow formed out of a void, Om was the vibrational emanation that erupted when the energy transferred from one state to another. And “Om” is deceptive, for when said clearly, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Perusing a dusty Post Card Row fixer upper I could never afford, she arrived first and sat in a chair across from me, looking around expectantly. As my iPad told me the story of 714 Steiner in fifty-seven pictures on realtor.com, she kept checking her phone, sitting on the front of her chair, head craned. [&hellip;]</p>

<p>It’s like the entire world right now is a confrontation, for which within varying degrees of connection we’re all coming to see one another’s deepest vulnerabilities and sadness. And I’m trying to get ahead of it for my kids’ sake. Because I’ve worked hard to process my personal grief into the productivity of seeing the [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Twenty-two years ago to the day, my ex-h, James, and I were in Reno. We’d driven the 8 hours with our then-2 year and 10 month old daughters, Julia and Livy, to combine James’ business trip with a visit with my mom, who’d driven from California to meet us. Courtesy of my sleepless daughters, we [&hellip;]</p>

<p>[1985 (Chapter 2?)] A high school teacher—in 1985—called me “Aimless,” in the midst of my AP Economics class, and hit an emotional target that I’ve been dodging ever since. “Aimless”—a play on Amy—made him titter gleefully at his own cleverness, and cemented in my mind the suspicion I’d always had that other people knew more [&hellip;]</p>

<p>I found my Hendrix CDs in the clutches of a torn, dirty box, and sliding one into the player, the notes of “Are You Experienced?” made my chest tingle. Because there are sections of your life when the change within yourself is so big you can’t see it properly but your body holds it inside, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Stella this morning looking towards the sun, her position concealing the large open, untreatable tumor on her face that is the reason she is currently in hospice care. Stella’s human is enduring a personal emergency and was called away from her girl but Stella is a cat that gets twice daily insulin, pain meds shot [&hellip;]</p>