My coffee drive-through was so backed up today I had to use the other side. The other side! I never use that side, it felt odd. I hope it’s not portentous.

Megan and I are taking a pole-dancing class. If you want to take it, too, it’s in the Lipman building on Water Street. You have to wear 6-inch platform heels, costumes are encouraged, and they teach you to strip your shirt off. So I guess ideally you’d also wear a shirt. Then strip it off. That’s not until the sixth session, though, hip circles are first.

Some flowers died and the cat won’t stop sneezing, also G. has gone on a note-writing tear. At night they go to bed before I do, I think that’s pretty standard. And now lately when I come up, there’s a note. Sometimes it’s a note that explains why G. is in my bed:

I came in here to try to get away from Pumpkin but he followed me. I can’t sleep with him because he keeps purring too loudly, walking across me, and shoving his face in mine.

Oh well.

Sometimes she just needs to vent (“beeping” is an age-appropriate curse word):

This beeping thing won’t turn off. I turned it on because I was trying to get a little light with my lamp off before I went to sleep. It was real frustrating.

P.S. this thing is the thing that won’t turn off.

There are more, I’ll show them to you later. The cat still won’t stop sneezing and I have cantaloupe to eat. You are welcome to have some, bring me a present.

C. has just sent great news. She has Crane Flies, she’s reading it. “I think it’s done,” she said. “I think you can send it.” What that means is I’m going to read it out loud today, the whole thing, start to stop. The whole darned thing, it’s how you catch what might be missing. It’s how you catch echo. So I’m going to read it and if you ever wanted to hear Crane Flies read well here’s your chance right now. Of course you’ll have to be sneaky, you’ll have to hide behind the couch. I don’t want to know you’re listening, you’ll have to lay low. You’ll also have to bring coffee. Today more than ever, because here’s what happened today: I counted out two dollars and fifty cents very carefully before I left the house; I put it in a cup in my car. Then I drove the cute kids to school, and steered myself home. I passed the drive-through, the one where the girl calls me “dear”. I looked at it and passed it and I drove home with nothing. No double tall cappuccino, no dog treat for Scruffy. Nothing. I’m sitting here, I’ve got nothing. How did I do that? Who does such a thing? Who carefully counts out coffee money and then drives right past the place? There is stuff on my mind I guess.

One of them is my legs. Not all of my legs, just mostly my thighs. Megan told me this would happen and I dismissed her, but she was right. Sunday J. dragged me up a steep mountain, it looked like this –> “/” only steeper, much steeper. He dragged me up the mountain and then he dragged me back down and on Monday nothing hurt. But Megan said, “it doesn’t hurt on the first day, dummy, it’s the second.” If you’re doing the math right now you know the second day is today and the tops of my legs hurt, the thighs. And also behind me, that hurts too. My plan was to run today, it will be a stiff jog.

I dreamt last night that I was dying. It may have been a premonition, about my legs. I felt dizzy and found out it was from dying and so I took to bed in a very grand and Victorian way and I started to call all of you on the phone. I made telephone calls so you would know I was dying, I was quite theatrical about it, you came and wept. For some reason when some of you came we went to the kitchen and stood at the counter to eat crackers. But for most of you I stayed in bed.

I don’t think I’ll die today but I wonder if that’s the manner in which I will. It was a small bed, too, a small twin bed and the room was narrow, not even a spot for a chair. So you had to sit on the edge of the bed, or the end of it, and say your things to me and I didn’t even offer you drinks.

Okay the reading will start now. Well not exactly right now, but very close. Since I don’t see you outside with my coffee I guess I’ll have to go get it and then the reading will start after that.

Oh this I must say, though it feels wrong to — I didn’t like Mad Men this week. I thought it was pushy. Like me on my small twin deathbed.

(You can still bring me lunch, I want soup.)

Oh, T., I didn’t respond, I didn’t did I, to your ants. I loved them. I love the detail, I love where the husband ant has his hands, I love how you handle the extra limbs. And I’m smitten with the couch. I also love, of course, how it appears he doesn’t have a chance. She is very clearly presenting a stronger case.

Maybe I’ll post something here someday. Maybe I’ll post a picture and show you what I mean. Since it’s not my work kiddies, I’m reluctant, but I will tell you this: Crane Flies is not only a brilliant collection of words, it’s got illustrations. I found a gifted boy and he’s drawing me married bugs. The aforementioned ants, by the way, are in therapy, that’s the sketch that T. just sent. They’re married, they have been for some time, they have two kids, they’re miserable. Now they’re presenting their case to that rite of passage, the marital court.

I’m sending that sketch and one or two others out on Monday with the complete text. I was planning to do it today but there’s no school, the children are here. Nothing will get done anywhere I might as well just say it.

In other news, Pumpkin’s outside. This you must never tell, I signed a paper. I promised he’d never go. If you are the Sherwood Cat Adoption place, please stop reading right now, just turn away. I have a back door that stays open when it’s nice, all the time and that’s how Pumpkin went out. He’s sunning by the pool. No hawks have swooped in to kill him, no rats have sidled up with disease, no mangy neighborhood cats are knocking him up — they can’t, he’s a he, and he can’t do it back, he’s lost his stuff.

Anyway, Pumpkin is outside and if I’m arrested you’ll know why. It wasn’t for that other one thing, it was the cat. If you can’t post my bail, then swing by to feed Scruffy once or twice. Thanks. That would be a big help.

T. said “Moscow Mules” today and that they serve them at Gilt in copper cups. Actually he said “cold copper cups” but I left off the “cold.” It’s a fine collection of words, anyway, and I’m going to Gilt right now to toast it.

(I’ve got the T. problem cleared up, btw; not sure where we are with Ms and Ks.)

J., the other day, called someone a “furious piece of work” and I loved that, too. I want to be called a furious piece of work, will you refer to me that way? In my biography, when they write it, let’s have that in the title. A Furious Piece of Work: The Life and Odd Ramblings of the Girl Who Lived On Bills Street.

There were little things yesterday, they happened all the way through it. And I tried to hang onto them but I lost a few, that’s how things bounce. There was dinner, though, and a funny story and I laughed out loud about it but if I tell you it won’t be the same, you’ll find it dull. I retell things very poorly. There was how the moon looked while I drove home and there was listening to Die Zauberflote live at the Met while I looked at the pretty moon. There was J. in Salt Lake City on the phone, there was a kitten, there were the children loaded with stories. There was the great big chunk I polished yesterday, and ping pong tables, and guess what? Friday you can text photos to me on your iPhone and I can do it back! That’s really all I’ve got. I’d like to be somewhere, anywhere, on a train right now but I’m not. Soon. Really.

Sunday at the Met, they booed the opera. I love that. H. and I should go soon, let’s go H. I’ll buy the popcorn. Tonight it’s Mozart if you’re free.

Last night H. made me miss commuting. I’d like to commute somewhere, but only by train. And only in the mornings, I don’t care to commute back. So if you have an office I can come to, and a train, please tell me right away, I’ll wear something nice.

One day, and I mean this, I’m going to walk into the AT&T store and make them fix my iPiece so that it sends emails again. I’ve tried all the fixes the internet techies say to do, I have. Wait. But I ought to be able to synch. If I manage to do that today, I’ll give you a picture of Pumpkin who is cute and new and sweet.

I have sheetrock, too, that’s new. In case you wondered. Everything else is old.

I have a movie due back, could you return it? And there’s a bill I can’t find, would you pay it? And since the weather is nice, will you come drink lemonade?

Submit all your answers by noon.

The people two booths over from me didn’t realize that Sokol Blosser makes Evolution and the woman in the next booth is upset about two typos on the menu.

I hear someone else recommending the pizza two doors down, I had it last night, I can vouch.

Oh dear. The Sokol Blosser talkers were just joined by a fourth, a woman, who is going to be difficult I can tell. She wanted to eat at Crescent, not here, even though Crescent is closed on Mondays. She’s very clearly upset. Perhaps the others should open the wine.

I sit in the same corner booth every time when I work at the hotel and I’m ignored and for the most part it’s fine. They know my habits. I don’t care for breakfast, for instance, I usually wait it out until lunch. But today I thought I’d like oatmeal and they don’t care, they refuse to acknowledge me. It’s not my habit to want oatmeal, they traffic only in habit.

We picked a kitten yesterday, his name is Pumpkin. Yes, I’m crazy. Yes, I am. But Pumpkin is cute and G. and Jr. are relentless and as soon as Pumpkin gets his post-neuter checkup we are free to pick him up. Pumpkin is orange, but does not look like pumpkins.

I need to go and do stuff now; I’m looking at beetles, for one. Please mingle.

Today seems very busy, it seems to be swirling around. There are colors and sounds and also smells and it’s not even 9:00. There are smells in the house and there’s one outside, too, the one outside is of rubber and it bugs me so I’ll probably stay in. It bugs me because, right or wrong, I assume it’s linked to my car and there’s a message in the car that says this: “Engine oil life 63%”. It’s a curious message and I’m going to ignore it until after work and I wonder if the number will go down, it has already. On Monday it was all the way up at 65.

So there’s the smell outside, and there are three different smells inside, and Scruffy’s breath smells but only if you get close. I lit the big white candle, I think it’s jasmine, and I’ve washed my hands of all of it now.

Mooresville, Indiana is the John Dillinger capital of America. John Dillinger robbed banks and he didn’t live very long. They shot him leaving the theater, so much goes down around theaters. I know this about Mooresville because T. is making me read a book and that bit of information was in the book.

This is a problem, not a big one though. I’ve run out of letters. There are too many T.’s and M.’s and I think I’ve even doubled up on K.’s. None of you know who you are anymore, and I usually don’t either. In this case, about the book, it’s the T. who makes wine. There’s another T. who draws bugs and who might have given me a book, I don’t remember, but whether he did or didn’t it’s not him it’s the other one. T1, let’s say. T1 makes wine, he was here first he gets to be 1. T2 draws bugs and they named a movie after him.

There is flurry here today, I work poorly with flurry. I work best with quiet and a complete lack of smells. Well by quiet, I mean alone. I sometimes put music on, I may do that to dampen the flurry.

I went to Applebee’s yesterday and had lunch with three gorgeous women. I used to work with them years ago when I lived somewhere else. I had a salad and so did they. Today, so far, I’ve had a banana.

One more thing then I promise I’ll stop. Junior kills the bugs now, I think it’s gallant. I didn’t ask him to. In fact there was a transition period where I killed all the bugs and I was competent at it, G. said so, too. But then a quiet shift and now Jr. kills the bugs and he’s so grown up doing it, and it seems odd. This morning it was a mosquito, a big mosquito and he threw a magazine at it and left it there. Sometimes, around breakfast, it’s unappetizing to look at the remains, I didn’t blame him at all. But now, just now when I led Sully through the house, I picked up the magazine and the mosquito was live and well. I won’t tell Jr. It’s an aberration anyway, it’s the first I think he’s missed. It took shelter in a crack so the magazine provided shade, but not death, i had to do that part and yes, the mosquito is now dead.

That’s all I’ll say, I promise.

Write me back.

Last night I watched softball under the stars, it was unreasonably perfect, the night. Today, to balance that, I’ll do mundane things. I’ll run and work. I’ll take G. her lunch.

My coffee was unusually good when I drank it (circa one hour ago). It was the sweet girl who calls me “Dear” who made the coffee. I’m feeling spoiled.

M. and C. are gone, though M. left a dish so we pretend she’s still here, but she’s not. There is work starting on Thursday, life will be buzzing here at the compound. There’s already new paint and shades, you should see what’s coming up next.

The book needs more bugs, still, and dialogue, but very little and I promise I’ll finish it. The end, you know, is the hardest part about these things. Not the ending, not the last part of the story, that part is perfect it’s beautiful it makes the heart melt I’m told. No, it’s the end stage — the combing through meticulously and finding spots that need to be fixed, and discovering that brilliant themes you introduced were somehow dropped and wound up going nowhere. The themes must be picked up and threaded through. And to be honest, it’s much more fun to watch softball under stars than to thread through a theme.

I’m renting Road House tonight, just because. Call me if you want to watch.

Last night we ate risotto and watched The Cruise and I think I’m better for it. Though I forgot the bagna cauda. I made it, I cut the vegetables, then I forgot all about it oh well.

C. is leaving tonight and I’m sad. I watched her grab a banana on her whirlish little way to Lowe’s — she’s painting and carpeting and having shades cut to size — and it made me terribly sad. Who will pull a banana from the bunch that same way tomorrow? Who will make up funny jokes with me? Who will paint the rest of the house? It’s okay, she’ll come back. I’m still sad.

Some flowers I planted bloomed, I have no idea what they’re called. And I used my basil last night in the salad. A spider ran in the back door not too long ago, the moon’s beautiful this week, and Jerry I hope today goes home. On Saturday, Blount-less Ducks play Purdue and maybe I’ll go for a run. Megan is running, she’s running farther than me and she’s doing it outside not in her garage. If I have lunch with her Saturday I’m telling her to stop.

A man is coming to measure something, until he does I’ll be writing a book.

L., let’s please have coffee next week, though I’m sick of coffee, let’s have something else. Absinthe, perhaps. I take it black.

I bet it’s fun to be Joe Wilson today. It’s fun to be Rob Miller because he’s running against Joe Wilson and raking in cash hand over foot in Joe’s mouth.

It’s fun to be me because I’m making risotto. Not now but after work I am, I’m making lots. It’s also fun to be C. because C. is painting. There’s a DiFalco gene, I think, that has something to do with paint, they all seem to like it.

It’s fun to be M. because she’s going on a big trip tomorrow, back to her posh little spa in New York. And it’s fun to be Scruffy because we gave him stuff to kill fleas. Very Tall Vet did that. Very Good Tall Vet did a wonderful job yesterday, you should go to him, take your cat. He brought to life, once, a cat with an iron stake through its heart, and he did something fun, too, with snakes but I don’t remember it now.

The weather’s nice and I’m busy and you probably are too. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.