I’ve been worried about my garden this year, first because I thought I’d planted everything to early, now because I worry I’ve planted quite a bit too late. I worried that the soil was bad and I needed raised beds, and now I’m worried that I put too much nitrogen in the raised beds so the roots are burning off all my plants like so much paper in a bonfire.

It’s been 95 the past two days (well, yesterday and then supposedly again today), so I went out this morning and watered everything early, in the hopes that I can baby my cosmos and kale and freshly-ensconced melons and cucumbers and squash through the heatwave without getting fried.

It’s springtime, and even in the desert that means everything is getting abundant (I’m sorry if it’s snowing on you; I’M SORRY, I’M SO SORRY), the cacti bursting with waxy flowers that look like they belong under the ocean. It’s getting hotter, but right now we’re delicately balanced on the edge of summer, still cool enough in the mornings to wear a sweater while walking the dog. Sometimes I feel like I’m tilting over—into stress, into sweat. But I’m excited for everything that’s coming, so I’m walking that line.

This week my sister and her whole family will be here! And I will hug them! And we will go swimming! And eat popsicles in the backyard! Next week another of my dearest friends will be here, briefly! Then I will have a respite with no visitors before all the good things that come with the publication of my book start happening. I will have a birthday; Dave and I (and Paul) will have a weekend away. Then I will jump into the future.

At some point—probably early August—my garden will die, and that’s fine too.

Exciting things! My friend Meaghan O’Connell’s excellent book AND NOW WE HAVE EVERYTHING: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready came out yesterday. I truly love this book, which is excruciatingly honest and relatable, with all the proprietary detail of a first-person car crash. I think women should read it; I think men should read it; I think you should read it whether or not you think you’ll ever have kids, because it’s worth knowing what the hell goes on in a body and in a life as you go through that process, even if you never plan to. (The book also pairs really well with Sheila Heti’s MOTHERHOOD, or as I call it, Should a Person Be? [deep cut Sheila Heti joke], which spends more time philosophically agonizing about the question of childbearing than any book I’ve read, and which therefore was existentially soothing for me, in the extreme.)

Boast news! INVITATION TO A BONFIRE is on Elle’s list of the 30 Best Summer Reads and I am EXTREMELY HAPPY ABOUT IT; maybe I cried. Maybe I am always crying a little bit, like women who have just given birth are often peeing just a little bit. (See, Meaghan’s book taught me so much.) I feel extremely lucky to be on a list with so many other incredible books & authors, and I can’t wait for everyone to get to read the book this summer.

Ok I guess I should go do my job until my niece and nephew arrive screaming into my general hug-sphere.