This is water

This morning I woke up at 10 a.m. to a soundtrack of Top 40 R&B slow jams, courtesy of a guy sitting outside my window in his car, drinking a 40 ... windows rolled down, no regard for those of us trying to enjoy a slow Sunday morning. After two hours (I'm not kidding), he walked across the street and peed on the apartment building across from mine. When I left my apartment at 1:00, he was still there; though the soundtrack had changed from Rhianna to some sort of Mexican polka.

Sometime during this whole debacle, I collected myself enough to sit down and read the NYT online ... only to discover that David Foster Wallace committed suicide on Friday.

I think this is as good a time as any to break this out: 2005 Kenyon University Commencement Speech. My mantra for the past several years. Ringing especially true these days of new and rude and dirty and uncomfortable and unfamiliar.

This is water. This is water. This is water.

R.I.P. D.F.W.

what walks on four legs and holds the key to my heart?

So Olive is now at, what I'm calling for the purpose of trying to make myself not feel like the world's worst mother, her West Seattle summer camp playing with her sister and the world's greatest yellow lab, Ms. Penny. A few weeks ago, while Olive was dallying around outside on my windowsill, the building owner drove by and, well, that's that. I'm not supposed to have cats. I was breaking the rules. Case closed. Long story short, Olive is gone until I leave for New York in August and my heart is broken.

Yeah, so my apartment is a little cleaner, and I don't have a million glasses in the dishwasher that have fallen victim to dipping kitty paws, and I don't have to live with double sided tape all over my couch blah blah blah. I do have a silent house, and no one to cuddle under the covers with me at night, and no one to greet me at the door when I get home and talk to me when I'm bored, and nothing to pet and scratch right before I fall asleep on the couch for a nap. I never pictured myself as a cat lady, and i still might argue that I'm more of just an animal lady in general, but Olive has got me whipped and I miss her immensely. I actually can't think about it without bursting into tears. I miss my girl.