A little bit louder and a little bit cursed

Does it feel to anyone else like we’re constantly going in circles? Every day, small victories, monumental losses. By the time the evening rolls around, the morning’s news feels as distant as events that took place weeks before. I don’t know.

I am finally home from book tour, much to the joy of Paul the dog, who can now beg me for treats every night between the hours of 7 and 9pm, with substantially better results than when he begs to Dave alone. We have a whole system. He gets riled up, I make him lie down and look me in the eye, all the while knowing he is not looking at me but past me, into the future when he’ll be eating a stick of jerky so fast that it makes him cough. Then, a few minutes after he swallows the jerky, the whole cycle starts again.

My garden is mostly dead by now, though I still have one tomatillo plant going, one melon vine with no melons on it, one small bush of basil. It’s hot enough that the death of the rest feels soothing; I don’t want to try and drown the whole world to get a few sunflowers.

I’m trying to write more in the mornings again. It’s nice. It isn’t going very quickly, but it’s nice. I am re-learning the rhythms of my own body and mind. Apparently Mars is in retrograde until the end of the summer, which feels appropriate, since I live on a hot red planet until that point anyway. I’m looking all over the world for kindness. I’m looking to tarot cards, to horoscopes, to book titles on the shelf, lined up like expectant children, awaiting love.

The world is scaring me. My mouth always feels so full of words that can’t come out in the right order—which is to say, the order which would calm everything down. I’m looking for some incantation. I guess I’m looking for the future.

*****

A couple of things: