05.29.23 [on the J train]

you can't savor this as i can, but know regardless that i am writing on a J train that's occupied exclusively by feminine people and that i'm using a pen anne carson used two weeks ago at the full-moon publishing party and art happening we attended out in brooklyn. i don't usually feel compelled to Dress As Poets Do, but anne c.–who wrote one of the editions that was published and distributed on that night only, with all (if any) remaining copies to be burned that night*–wore a maraschino-red issey-miyake-adjacent sleeveless dress with matching trainers, plus a medal that looked a lot like the one i got for running that 5K through downtown reyjkavik. i would wear that every day! (as it happens, i'm currently wearing a short, sleeveless athleta dress with my monarch-butterfly-covered day of the dead adidas trainers, which might be a weird choice for escorting patients at an abortion clinic, but what should one wear for that? i went with running capris last time and it was also odd. can't turn up shlubby when odds are some shakycam video of you will end up on facebook with anti-choice propaganda captions, now can you.)

we now have a second cat, and i have mostly stopped thinking we have to kill her because she's ruining matty's life. (this is a regular impulse for me, my equivalent of maternal ferocity–when we brought kitten-steve home and he played with chuck's tail in a way i considered aggressive i thought about ending him, too.) she is the first adult cat, the first female cat, the first intact-recent-mama cat we've ever had, and i was more than a little afraid of her. kittens you can manhandle with love, provided that you communicate that they are the ones calling the shots in your interactions, and i feel pretty confident in my understanding of a little dude's agenda, but she! she growl-purred for the first 24 hours or so, which seemed related to matty's presence, but what if she just hated my guts? now she yells at matty sporadically but is portable and gymnastically affectionate with us–such flop-rolls! she was clearly not a street cat, but it seems like her experience is limited–upholstery and treats flummox her. i wish we could skip ahead to the part where she realizes matty wanting to be her pal is a good thing, but i'm doing my best to let them figure things out on their own. be cool, joe says, don't overthink it, which is weird, since he's met me.

*ragnar decided not to burn the extra books and instead had his translator take them, as burning books in this particular america felt fraught to him. relatable!