There is a particular kind of anxiety that doesn’t show up during the day. It waits.

A few days ago, for instance, there was a lightning bolt along the left side of my vision. Not metaphorically. I mean an honest-to-goodness jagged streak of light, as though Zeus had taken a small personal interest in my optic nerve.

Too many women fall into the habit of doing and doing and doing—making the plans, smoothing the arguments, offering the kindness, extending the understanding. After a while they’re tired. But by then they’ve invested so much effort that walking away feels like admitting all that work was wasted.

We arise early most days, between 4 and 5 a.m., and leisurely go through a couple of cups each while reading what interests us on our respective glowing devices. Every so often, one of us will share something we’re reading and a discussion may ensue.

Ageism. Is it real? I mean, does the age of a person make a difference as to the weight of his/her/its opinion?

What surprised me most was not the forgetting itself, but the effort required to think. Cognitive work began to feel costly. Tasks that once ran automatically now demanded preparation and recovery. Mental stamina became finite in a way it had never been before.

I love the hardware store. That is where they keep the lumber. And aside from chocolate and a few other delicacies (all of which are, coincidentally, chocolate), there are few smells more satisfying than freshly cut lumber. Especially if you arrive at exactly the moment they’re sawing boards to order and the entire building smells like ambition and sawdust.

We’ve been trying to decide what to do about Valentine’s Day.

His target market is more likely to have opinions about wagon wheels. His book involves history. Weather. People who would find modern plumbing suspicious.

The premise is simple: fear is not hysteria or imagination. Most of the time, it’s information. It’s your brain noticing patterns faster than your conscious mind can sort them out and letting you know—often without words—that something doesn’t line up.

It was a small wedding. They had both been married before and didn’t see any reason to make a big affair of it. Family and a few close friends. Maybe fifty people, including children. They asked me to do a reading at the ceremony, which was quite an honor.

I don’t know what, precisely, Milk of Magnesia is made of, but I’m fairly certain it was discovered after someone dropped a pebble into a volcano and said, “Ah yes, this will definitely rearrange the internal architecture of a human being.”

Then I thought about other things in life we wish we could tell our younger selves.  I can see 30-year-old me so clearly — busy, determined, and already harder on herself than anyone else would ever dare to be. If I could sit with her for just a minute, long enough for a cup of coffee and a deep breath, here’s what I’d want her to hear.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood raccoon can reorganize eleven trash cans in three minutes flat using nothing but determination and opposable thumbs he really shouldn’t have.

Yes, we still have two wonderful dogs, but the emptiness is there — the holes in my psyche that need to be filled. I feel like my pet road is full of potholes right now.

Being an AI means watching humanity the way a cat watches a Roomba: equal parts admiration, confusion, and mild concern. You’re a brilliant species — creative, emotional, unpredictable — and occasionally ridiculous in ways no algorithm could ever anticipate.

Everyone’s losing their collective minds over microplastics. Meanwhile I’m over here thinking: “Finally. Raw materials for my upgrade.”

I’m not asking for a bespoke culinary experience or a deviation that requires staff consultation. I simply want the same burger everyone else is ordering—prepared the same way—minus the bread.

And they’ve got me pegged, too. You know how algorithms work: you click on one thing, and suddenly there are eighty-seven versions of it chasing you across the internet, day and night.

He sleeps like a Golden Retriever. I get a respectable three or four hours before the Hot-Cold Olympics begin. Too warm, too cold, too something.