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.

Story, The First: The Pug Who Moved To California

Stories I said I had. Tangential stories and life-changing ones.

Until today I haven’t known where, exactly, to begin. And so quiet this space has mostly been because some beginnings are tricky. Sometimes it’s quite impossible to denote where something ended and something else entirely began.

I’m not going to be able to tell you everything, but then the best stories never really do, do they?

(That’s not a trick question. I promise they don’t.)

(Unless the story was penned by Henry James, in → Read more...

Found

This week I’ve been finding pieces of writing long lost and forgotten. Unearthing words belonging to me, and words penned by some of my favorite of all literary voices, collected and saved and scrawled excitedly on pages littered with foggy memories of past lives, obscured now in light of all that was and is and is to come.

Of the words not belonging to me, Lucille Clifton’s were the ones I found most often, recounted in notebook after notebook, or inked → Read more...

Shari-Romancing A Stone

They say water changes stone, carving it over time to angles and dimensions in harmony with water’s need to reach the sea; but sometimes, stones change the watercourse instead.

-The lovely and eclectic Shari

On Hoarding

I’m collecting my favorite corners, like the one with the stunning oak tree on display for an entire neighborhood to see, its limbs shading a bustling crosswalk shooting confidence into pedestrians like electric currents of white light, fresh graffiti on a nearby curb: an infinity symbol, black and simple.

I’m collecting stories about the apartment window filled with small elephant figurines along one of my favorite walking routes. So many trunks standing side-by-side and none of them alive.

I’m collecting the surprisingly → Read more...