It's fiddle time

Who's the sugar nerd now



I have been missing Y terribly of late, the onset sudden and breathtaking. He touches me and I imagine his hands


Where once I would have relished the enthusiasm of the boy with the dog who wanted to play with my dog, today I tripped over myself trying to keep space between us. It was no use--my dog stole his dog's ball, and before I could kick it back he'd run to my feet, hand outstretched. This is the time I find myself in, when I am afraid of a child playing in an open field by the river because I have asthma and an autoimmune disorder and I do not know what, if anything, he's carrying. Nor do I know what, if anything, I am carrying; nor do I know, anymore--I who have made it my mission to make sure every child I encounter is safe in my presence, as I was not safe in the presence of so many adults before me--if it is safe for children to be around me



Maybe I'm not missing Y. Maybe I'm nostalgic, instead, for innocence, for the uncertainty of taking off my clothes or nodding my head to classic rock or drawing on a diner's placemat or seizing a truck's stick shift and not knowing what would happen next. Maybe I'm nostalgic for falling in love, which is so much easier than loving someone.




I have always been annoyed by writing that uses letters in place of a person's name.

I kept trying to get to the part where men explain Fiona Apple to her



Last night I saw my girlfriends' faces for the first time in oh-so-long, smiling and blowing kisses through a phone screen. It was more heartening than I'd expected. Tonight we will FaceTime with an old friend while watching Raiders of the Lost Ark. We will munch on big glass bowls of popcorn, us high up in the Rocky Mountains and him in the middle of Austin, hands reaching back into the bowl simultaneously, but never touching. It is both a heartbreaking and heartwarming state of affairs



I keep a list of the items we would like to purchase the next time he ventures to a grocery store, as many weeks as possible after the last visit. He goes each time--stepping into the shower the moment he returns--because I have asthma and an autoimmune disorder. I don't know if it's right. I am grateful. I do not know how long I can accept it. It's humbling and uncomfortable. It begins with vinegar