Ten.Six Hundred & Eighty-Seven

1. What’s that little guy doing on the window?

2. They are worried that the snail will die. I tell them that it’s just nature and that sometimes snails will die. They want me to open up the screen. I tell them that unless they are going to pick it up with their handsand place it in the grass, it’s going to just stay there. No one wants to touch it.

3. That might be enough coffee.

4. Free settee. He tells us that it’s been in his family for years. I get to love it now, too.5

5. He’s smiling and talking. I tell him that he looks well-rested. He agrees that he feels good and that he’s not tired. I gotta get him to sleep more.

6. I had forgotten how much I like downtown Pleasanton.

7. At the end we joke about how our husbands react to us meeting people from the internet. I’m glad we made time for this today. These little meetings with kindreds make everything a little easier.

8. Cool, almost cold.

9. I clean her room because her room needs it the most. No, this is not cleaning. I’m throwing things away because she is sentimental and messy and scattered. I listen to the New Yorker Fiction podcast, Emma Cline reading “The Metal Bowl” by Miranda July. Something about the story makes me want to cry. It’s not the particulars of the story, or maybe it is. No. It’s because in her own odd way, Miranda July has found a way to touch on an aspect of womanhood that we often don’t talk about.

10. So much cleaning.