Why Would That Work?

I lay my phone back on my night stand, and press the button on the side to turn off the screen and plunge the room back into darkness. It's only 4:30 in the morning, and I don't have to be up for another hour-and-a-half, but I'm wide awake and not tired at all. 

The light from the parking garage next door is bright enough to leak through our thick curtains and make them gray, and the dog's toenails click on the floor as she shifts restlessly in her sleep, while Katie breathes deep and slow next to me.

I find myself visualizing skiing down a mountain in Vermont, trying to go faster and faster in my head until I fall back asleep.

Back and Forth

I don't know why I get so mad on the way home from work. I got a seat on the subway and everything, and yet I find myself, unprovoked, imagining people hurting Katie, or attacking the dog, and me jumping on these imaginary attackers, beating them, breaking their knees, choking them, gouging their eyes, biting them, smashing their heads against the ground.

I plug in my headphones and put on a song I know will calm me down. By the time I get upstairs to my apartment, I'm standing at the door, leaning against the wall, crying, wishing happiness to all living beings, wishing I had better control of my thoughts during the other times when I feel like I'm going to kill the next person who looks at me wrong.

Scratch THAT off the Bucket List

After I'm done feeding the cat, Katie lifts a forkful of the egg salad she's making for me to taste test.

"Mmmm, maybe something to brighten it up, like lemon juice, or pickle brine?" I say.

I finish cleaning up, lick my fork and realize that Katie's still using the fork with which she gave me my sample, and that my mouth tastes like fish.

I put the cat's fork in the dishwasher, pause to collect myself, and then say, "I have to tell you something."

Race Relations

"But the real question is," he asks, leaning forward, "why do you think you need to write from a black character's point of view?"

"Well," I say, hedging, "I mean, I feel like my point of view is kind of over-represented."

"Of course it is!" he says, clapping. "You're white!"

Hierarchies

"I think you're the alpha female, to the dog," I say, as the dog finishes nosing around the tree and, seeing that Katie is walking, decides to follow.

"Well, I should hope so!" Katie says, laughing.

"I mean, of course," I correct myself. "But what I mean is, I'm pretty sure she thinks it goes you," I hold my hand out, palm down, at about eyeball height, and then my other hand, a little lower, "then her, then the cat, then me."

Clouds (4 - Hedgehog Moon)

The nearly full moon peers down through a thin haze, and I feel like a hedgehog, all spiky and sensitive at the same time.

I see our downstairs neighbor just as I'm about to take the dog back up from her evening walk, and I remark how tired I am.

"Y'all hit it pretty early, like ten-thirty or so, right?" he says (it's a little past ten-thirty as we're speaking).

"Yeah, but I'm getting up at six these days to write," I say, feeling lame, "so, you know."

Clouds (3 - Head as Thoughtful as an Empty Sky)

Not a cloud to be found.

I listen to "Toys in the Attic" by Aerosmith while doing the dishes. Katie's wandering in and out of the kitchen talking to her mom on the phone about her side hustle business, which involves making sculptures under glass using butterflies and branches and stones she finds at the park, and they're discussing a sale she's made from her website.

I decide I like the R.E.M. version better, but either way, it's only 9:30 and I'm ready to go to bed.