It’s per­pet­u­ally night in my lit­tle nest. A gui­tar is never more than an arms length away, and two cats are always will­ing to curl up against my body under the sheets (though never together); some days it feels like these are the only things I need in the world. Perhaps I’m lit­tle too com­fort­able here, where I can watch the snow fall out the win­dow, and sel­dom have to ven­ture out of my com­fort zone.

I’m con­stantly start­ing over. Throwing away a page so I can have a blank can­vas. Losing another friend to adult­hood, then find­ing new ones in the most unex­pected places. Riding the oscil­la­tions of a sine wave.

The only thing that’s con­stant is how much Byron is grow­ing, his paws and tail hav­ing sur­passed Dolly’s in girth many months ago, and I can’t wait to see how big he’s going to get once he’s fully into adult­hood. I relate to my friends only when one of the cats is afflicted with acne or her­pes or an upper res­pi­ra­tory infec­tion, and I have to play mother to a kitty who can’t fight the sick­ness by them­selves. Dolly has been espe­cially sen­si­tive lately, and needs a lot more atten­tion and affec­tion, still jeal­ous of the new kit­ten in the house.

Butt to butt.

Lisa keeps me sane nowa­days, a role she’s par­tially taken over from John ever since he became a dad. She’s the voice of female rea­son in my life, the only excuse I use to watch great movies now, and the one who talks me down from drunken e-mails to ex-girlfriends. But some­times I need more than half a Lisa and half a John, cause not every­thing can be solved by a stolen con­ver­sa­tion or bury­ing your face in a cat’s belly.

I’m learn­ing that life goes on, whether you’re ready or not. You can only con­trol so much. This real­iza­tion is the rea­son I don’t worry about the future any­more, even when it feels like I should be worried.

I’ve also dis­cov­ered that my writer’s block hasn’t been due to a lack of things to talk about, but the fact that noth­ing I write is sat­is­fy­ing any­more. I’ve lost my rea­son. The only thing I’ve fallen in love with lately has been my set of extra-light chrome flat­wound strings, cause they have such a crisp sound off the nail, but main­tain a warm, aus­tere overtone.

I used to go to bed and dream, but nowa­days, my mind is empty. I don’t know what to make of it all any­more. Can’t fig­ure out if I’m stand­ing on a crest or trough.