There’s a video on YouTube called “Kiwi!” that is devastatingly sad to me. Someone sent me a link to it a little earlier today asking if I had seen it. I had, but I wondered if I would still find it as moving as I did before. Just a few seconds in, I panicked and stopped the video. I remember how hard I cried the first time I saw it.

But I write about painful things all the time, things that are ground into my memory like dirt into a skinned knee. I can write about it. I can read other people’s poetry about the most heartbreaking events. I can. I do.

But I can’t watch an animated video about a determined kiwi.

Why? Am I just inured to my own brain’s awful images? Is there really a distance of words? Why are poems so often cathartic for me, but fiction isn’t?

Is it just the complexity of the poem, the density, the difficulty, the brevity, that makes it bearable, makes it activate almost a problem-solving portion of my brain rather than a purely experiential portion? Sad poetry is beautiful and healing. Sad movies just make me feel ill and depressed.

Am I alone?

I’m actually keeping my word about submitting poetry. Who’da thunk?

Two more journals submitted to. This is hard.

You know the kind. You’re in the middle of a sentence and WHAM! You sneeze. No warning. Just an attack and then poof.

I like army sneezes better. The kind where you can see them massing at the border, ready to invade.

It is a minor thing, but I never like when things are defined by what they aren’t instead of by what they are. Non-fiction, for example. It turns “fiction” into the standard, leaving non-fiction to be the poor relation, the other.

(Yes, I do sit around and think about things like this. I’m such a nerd.)

Words, names, labels, they are powerful things. Does defining something by what it isn’t change how we approach the thing? Does an presumption of a default change our thinking? Why not “documentary”? Why not “existion” (to make up a word at random)?

If you remember that line that I just paraphrased, you probably have the song in your head RIGHT NOW! Hahahaha!

I’m just happy because I finally have a range that, in theory, works. I’m baking some cookies. Stand back.

Cosmo really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really wanted to be in a picture.

“If it weren’t for double standards, you’d have no standards at all.”

It wasn’t said to me, but damn, it fits.

I don’t want Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee for President.

But I do, very much, want Hillary Clinton to stay in politics and to be a force to be reckoned with in the Senate.

I think she’s good for the country. I think she’s dynamic, smart, and talented.

And I think she should become the Senate Majority Leader and kick some ass.

(And if she gets the Pres. nomination, I’m drying my eyes and voting for her.)

Ichabod is dying. She can no longer breathe.

She’s an old cat, near 20 if not older, and she has been driving me crazy for 18 years, bouncing around the world like a black and white Superball.

Recently, the vet discovered that she was hyperthyroid. Aha! With medication, perhaps she will become a sedate and stately kitty! But no. Medication just seemed to unleash the full fury of her furry energy.

On the night I got her, someone had cut off part of her ears. She was bleeding and starving and shivering, and she chose me. Me. I opened my apartment door for a trick-or-treater, and there came a streak of black and white. I had been watching “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” so she became Ichabod. Later came Irving. Ichabod and Irving. 18 years. Both dying. Irving the placid. Ichabod the vibrant. They’ve canceled each other out for all of these years, I guess it’s fitting they go out close together.

Fitting, but no more fair for all of that.

We’re getting a new range. Our old one needs a new element in the oven and one of the burners.

Is it weird that in preparation for the delivery guys, I’ve cleaned the oven more thoroughly than I ever did to cook?

I don’t think Donna Reed is ever going to ask me for housekeeping tips.