This morning I was thinking about the fact that at the beginning of the year, I had a bleeding wound on the side of my head. Right after my ear surgery I had, as I’m sure I mentioned, a half-bra-looking thing full of gauze strapped over the afflicted ear, putting on pressure and soaking up all manner of disgusting output.

But after just a day I was supposed to take the bra-thing off, and when I did my ear bled so freely that I was terrified. I sat on the couch, pressing rags and tissues to my face, shaking with fear. Dave and I looked through the discharge materials I received, and they all confirmed it was pretty normal to have bleeding—as did the on-call doctor when we called him, as did my cousin (also a doctor) when I texted her. I couldn’t really move my neck, so I sat still. I watched a lot of TV to distract myself.

All of which is to say that my ear is pretty much healed now. I still have to get it cleaned out by the ENT once a month or so, and I’m still dripping antibiotics carefully into the massive crevasse that no one but me really notices as abnormal, but on the whole it’s healing well and I am moving on with my life. I can shower again, which is good because it’s going to be too hot soon to keep the radiant heat on in the bathtub.

This weekend I went to the Tucson March For Our Lives. It was a strange, cloudy day, which felt appropriate: not so hot we all got dehydrated, though there were still volunteers all along the route handing out water bottles. The weather was gentle with us. The march was very, very well-attended, and full of teenagers with signs and megaphones, leading us all in chants, sprinting around in t-shirts that asked “AM I NEXT?”

I parked across the street from one of my favorite coffee shops, in front of an army surplus store that has a pro-gun (“self-defense zone”) sign in the window. That store has occupied the same corner for many years, and has only recently been surrounded by the coffee shop/vintage store/beer bar/wine bar progressive neighbors that now share its city block. I wonder if they spend more time rolling their eyes at the “Immigrants Welcome Here” signs across the street, or being glad that foot traffic has increased along with the neighborhood profile.

Last night I dreamed that our landlord (hint: we don’t really have one; we own our house) kicked us out, and Dave had rented us a much-too-small space that shared a wall with a college party house. Dream-Dave couldn’t understand why I was upset that he hadn’t told me any of this was happening. “I took care of it!” he said. When I woke up, I told real-Dave about this dream, and he said, grimly, “No, I am still your friend.” Then a few minutes later he popped his head into the kitchen and asked, “Do you ever sing the Les Mis song “One Day More” except about “One Dave More?”

By which I mean: sometimes the non sequiturs of our lives are good; sometimes waking life is better than dreams; sometimes things are ok.

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