On Birthdays And Bests

Today Iggy is 2! puggy years old.

Today my BFF Cayly (often known around these parts as “Hans”) is 27! human years old.

This is Iggy:

This is Hans:

(Picture quite blatantly stolen from Hans’ Facebook page, because I have been horrible with the recent picture taking.)

Got it? OK, then!

I’ve known Hans since we both chose the same college for our Undergraduate Experience (9! years ago now), and she so quickly became one of my most favorite people on this planet, for many reasons, not the least being her ability to live her life courageously and with gusto, and to inspire me to do the same. She also makes me laugh, a lot, and is one of the most supportive people I’ve ever had the privilege to have in my corner. I told her yesterday that I think we should start making our birthdays epic adventures each year, so that when we’re 80, sitting next to each other in our rocking chairs not knitting and drinking moonshine we’ll have so many stories to tell the random children crowded around our feet, children who aren’t ours, but who think we tell awesome stories. (We totally do.)

(I haven’t quite worked out all of the details of our elderly-ness, as you can probably tell. But it will definitely involve awesome stories.)

Most of you probably know Iggy well enough to know he’s a pretty rad pug, probably the cutest in all the land, and more than anything he reminds me that there is so! much! to be excited about in this world, on a minute-by-minute basis. This piece of stray string on the floor? EXCITING. The phone ringing? EXCITING. The sound of a drunk couple slurring and stumbling past the open apartment windows? EXCITING. Cottage Cheese? EXCITING.

In summary, the fact that two of my favorites in this world have birthdays on the same day is a pretty awesome coincidence. EXCITING, even.

Also, I can’t believe Iggy was once this small:

Happy! Day of Cake*, my loves.

*No cake for Iggy. Though I might have slipped him a bit of peanut butter this morning.

Merry Mélange

It was here, while waiting for my brother, that I started this story, although, of course, at the time I did not know that stories of life are often more like rivers than books. But I knew a story had begun, perhaps long ago near the sound of water. And I sensed that ahead I would meet something that would never erode so there would be a sharp turn, deep circles, a deposit, and quietness.

-from A River Runs Through It → Read more...

Back Diving

I posted a picture of him for a silly Instagram-related game and found him waiting for me in my dreams, something which occurs so rarely it still explodes solidly-constructed dams inside me each time I see his face, mustached and smiling at mine just the way he always did, just the way I always remember him. As usual he didn’t say much, not anything I could hear or remember, but he was there and I knew it, and when I → Read more...

Hiking Into Green Valleys

I have words washed out to sea. Words ushered quietly from my lips to my fingertips, waiting patiently for the right tide, for the moon to bring my stories alive.

I have words being reviewed, words accepted and words rejected, and I’m clinging to my favorite lines, fighting for them, and it feels strange and new and exhilaratingly infuriating, this tug-of-war of wills and how the slightest bit of caving can make me feel like I’m flirting with abandoning the sanctity → Read more...

Rivers And Roads

[Alternately titled: Story, The Second: The Girl Who Moved To Washington State]

It began simply. A direct message on Twitter first, followed by texts; those texts, in turn, begat plans. With those plans came anxiety and apprehension – I didn’t know you, not your face or your voice or anything else, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to – but also something exciting, a strange and unexpected hope hovering quietly on the horizon. And then we met, conversed and laughed → Read more...