It’s almost 6:45 a.m., and the street is still dark. The sweet lanterns on my porch glow like little moons. From the sound of a familiar engine and the quick sweep of headlights, I can tell the café owner has headed out. I resisted the urge to call after him, “Time to make the donuts.”

Today is a showing up day. Word Raccoon is tucked under a quilt on the porch swing with strict instructions to stay put. Too many events, too little time for wrangling my writing gremlin, though I am taking notes.

Yesterday was a whirl. A customer appreciation day first, where a gentleman asked, “Shouldn’t you be at the café writing?” Oh, kind sir. I wanted to be.

Then a Twain readers’ theater at a retirement community. WR stowed away and beamed at their choice of Mark Twain’s more subversive pieces. She even reconnected with a few people, one of whom asked if her second book had ever come out. (Yes, indeed it has.) We sat with a woman about to head to the Grand Canyon, if things don’t close down before then, bless her heart.

As we left, WR gave the room one last scan, making sure she’d seen and interacted with everyone she knew there. Only a sigh and, moments later, the comic thunk of a traffic cone under the car. No harm done, unless you count driverly pride.

Later came the homecoming parade. WR was determined to spot my football-playing nephew. Eyes wide, camera ready. But the players weren’t in the parade after all. It makes sense because they had a game to play and the heat was high, but WR was deflated. A little Laffy Taffy cheered her. For a while.

Today is already mapped. Soon we’ll head to the fire department’s annual pancake breakfast. (I like pancakes. I don’t like early mornings.) Next, music at the café I love to haunt, my small vote for more live performers. Then on to the music department’s car-show fundraiser, a plan long in the making with a friend.

The gym might fit in, though my hip disagrees. Cortisone shot on Monday: excited and anxious. Not for the needle, if others can do it, so can I, but for whether relief will last.

We may end the day with my husband’s friend’s band gig. That one’s a maybe. WR might slip away to write instead; she only managed two poems yesterday, “In My Kitchen” and “On Simmer,” before the day caught up with her. Over dinner she recited an older piece, “Renewal,” from the heart. I’d bet my hat it finds a home.

Even as I write this, I feel that tug, homesick for my desk. The early light seems to rise from the ground itself, gilding streets and rooftops. Birds call to each other; do they have plans? Maybe they’re headed to the pancake breakfast too.

Here are a few lines from “Renewal,” which owes a nod to Logan’s Run:

There is no sanctuary.
Only the work.
Only the remaining…

Not exactly the glitter and purple you’d expect from Word Raccoon. She’s deeper than she lets on.

For now, she’s settling for strong coffee, a shower, and maybe, just maybe, a late-afternoon pocket for writing. I’d have the pancakes delivered if I could. This flowered robe is so cozy.

Word Raccoon is feeling quiet.
She is contemplating the novel, since I told her this is the fall of the novel.
(Season, not demise. She narrowed her eyes.)

She’s not thrilled. But she’s considering complying. She wants only poetry. She has had summer nights of nothing but keyboard and lava. She does not want to give that up. We are negotiating. 

For now, she pads around the house with an air of uneasy grace, pawing at half-filled notebooks and letting her tail trail across unopened chapters.

She is thinking of the grab bag of compliments she keeps at hand for her favorite wildlife, but how she sometimes keeps her hand in her pocket because she does not want to scare off the squirrels.

She wants to acknowledge the admirable, restrained modesty in the well-connected squirrels.
The fierce, nuanced takes.
There are so many things she wants to say, but I put my hand on her sleeve.

“You can be a bit much, my friend,” I tell her.

She showed me a photo of a sign we saw today at a secondhand shop out of town, though we did not buy it. It read:

“I Was Not Made to Be Subtle.”

She tapped it with a claw and grinned.

“See?” she said. “Proof.”

She’s not wrong. (And I found it ironic that the letters were set in such subtle colors. Perhaps that’s another layer of irony.) 

My son might be one of her people.

He met Word Raccoon today over pancakes and bacon, maybe for the first time.

In the short amount of time it took his father to leave the room and return, WR had taken a line my son said and spun it into a song with three metaphors and a punk melody, though we spared him that.

“That should be a song,” I told him when he initially said that inspirational line.

He blinked and said, “I don’t know how it could be.”

We hashed it out for a minute or two, then I made a little motion with my arms, something that opened up the idea as we built on it.

“Oh,” he said. “You were already ten steps ahead of me, with metaphors and everything.”

Not me, exactly.
Word Raccoon had already heard the full chorus ten seconds after he said the line.

We’re not sorry our son met WR.
But we do know not everyone can handle her intensity.
Which is why she remained under wraps for so long.

WR is the kind of creature who thrifted metaphor before it was cool.
She wants to play in lyric. To bite the edges of simile.

She loves poetry but she’s not sure how to live in the shape of a novel again after all of this time.

Still, we’re trying.

We’re trying to give her space without flooding the room.
She doesn’t mean to overwhelm people, but she doesn’t sip. She pours.
She doesn’t whisper. She sings with her throat exposed.
And sometimes, people only bring thimbles. (Which is fine.)

So we measure.
We pause.
We try to decant a downpour into teaspoons.

We try not to waterboard anyone with our love and attention, while standing still long enough to see if they do want that, because maybe they do. (Obv. no one wants to be literally waterboarded, but some ppl like attention.)

We wonder if using a sprinkling can is nuanced or underdeveloped. (God, I guess I am a writer to the bone.) 

“Squirrels just want birdseed and nuts. You put it out and bada boom, bada bing, baby. Whatever,” says WR.  She’s a little cruel, a little crass, but her heart is right and strong. 

“I am too much i’ the sun,” Hamlet quipped. 

But today, my son didn’t flinch.
He didn’t turn away.
He caught the song mid-spin and grinned.

“You were already ten steps ahead.” I don’t think that’s quite true, but sweet of him. 

He’s a pretty great songwriter, too. 

He doesn’t know that’s a high compliment to WR.
And that she is trying to hold that truth gently in her paws.

Well, my son is covered in tattoos and wears a nose ring. Stands to reason he would appreciate someone a little unconventional. 

After all that, we didn’t talk more about it. My husband and I dropped Zack off at home and went to see Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. (Zack was invited, but let’s face it, it’s not his thing.) 

In all, WR really enjoyed the movie. It was well done. Lady Mary is her favorite character, naturally. Or one of them.

WR likes the historical drama, the sweeping gowns, the clever lines. The end of an era. 

She snorted at a few of the sentimental parts and a few moments she thought were setups that must’ve had sections left on the cutting room floor because they did not develop, but she was otherwise well-behaved.

Shockingly, she didn’t ask for Twizzlers. 

Sometimes, even Word Raccoon knows when to hush.

Now if only I could teach her the right time to speak. 

Now Playing: “Unforgettable,” Natalie Cole and Nat “King” Cole

Word Raccoon had a hunch today. She suspected there might be something new waiting in a recently updated space she hadn’t thoroughly plumbed. (You know, the artsy places.)

She was not wrong. There, a Fabergé-caliber Easter egg of sorts awaited her. 

We gasped. We gawked. WR tried to taste the screen.

Approved! 

If WR wanted to paint before, she really, really wants to now. As if she could capture his image.

(Stop trying to nibble at my phone, WR!)

(I’ve offered to take her to the Caillebotte exhibit soon at the Art Institute, if it pleases her majesty. The book for the show is aptly subtitled, “Painting Men.” Maybe that will calm her?)

Though WR says no brush could ever quite capture the particular heartbreak of a man who doesn’t bother to shave and still looks that damn good.

Zip it, WR! 

Whew.

Moving on. 

This morning, Word Raccoon and I went shopping for a family gathering and she decided at the last minute with less than two hours to get ready and travel (which, to be fair, was nearby) that she wanted to make an edible wreath honoring my mother and sister.

One made up of fall-themed tea cakes.

I mean…cute idea, yes, they both would have liked it. No chocolate, though, because Tammy did not like chocolate. (I used to tease that we couldn’t possibly really be related because of that.) 

But I told WR that we hadn’t even chosen our clothes. 

She stamped her foot in the aisle, teared up, and insisted. “This is our first family gathering since the funeral. We will do this.”

So I made the wreath. Using pre-made tea cakes, but I made it, and I topped it with my mom’s favorite, snowball cakes. She also really liked her snowball bushes. I forgot to ask anyone if they bloomed this year, and if they did so before…

But while WR and I were checking out at the first store (we do not have many options in our town), I made small talk with the cashier and learned some scandalous Hatfields-and-McCoys- light stuff regarding the local dollar stores. 

I had no idea. 

Apparently, she whispered conspiratorially as she pushed my items over the scanner, it even involves a local church whose pastor allegedly supported bringing in a dollar store in a nearby town and his people are leaving his church because he didn’t support the dollar store that was already there.

I’d watch that reality show: Dollar Store Wars, Church Edition. Anyone else in?

Once WR and I had visited the next store, I kept telling WR there was no way we were going to be on time if she didn’t hurry up. She told us we are always early, and if we ended up being late who cared? 

“Do you think the world is going to end if you’re not there at noon on the dot?” WR asked.

That stopped me. 

“But WR, my father prided himself on being early everywhere. We can’t be late. It’s rude.” 

“Then text ahead and tell them you’re running late, if you are.” 

I ran through the shower and after, she pointed at her purple dress.

“There might be yard games,” I said. “A dress is not practical.”

She pointed at the dress again. She didn’t have to remind me that purple was Tammy’s favorite color. 

“Fine, but shorts under it,” I insisted.

She was in rare form today, I swear. I didn’t resist when she insisted on wearing the earrings with all the words on them, because what was the point?  

Reader, we were right on time. 

Once home after the fun time, I was shortly greeted with an armload of deliveries to review from the sweetest delivery driver who circled the house looking for the correct door. That’s above and beyond and I told her so! 

In the stack, both the blue silk pleated dress and the silver teardrop earrings I’m wearing to an event in late October. I can’t wait to wear my newest dress. WR promises to be her own work of art that night.

Though that masterpiece she stumbled upon today? Unrepeatable. And impossible to forget. (Looks like I’ve been watching too much of that brand of reality TV. Or maybe not enough?)

WR, I said to put that paint brush down! 

I finished reading a novel today and found myself with thoughts I wanted to share.

Reader, I also found myself with a bottle of wine and a desire to create an autumn Sangria recipe, Midwest meets Barcelona with white wine and apple cider. 

Guess which I went for? (Shared, I promise. And there are leftovers.)

Autumn Nights Sangria (Drema style)

Add to a pitcher:

• A bottle of your favorite white wine, best a little on the sweet side

• Two cups of fresh apple cider (plenty of orchards around, no excuses)

• A cup of fresh or frozen peaches (they double as ice cubes without watering things down) in large pieces (This is not baking — eyeball however damn many you want; I am not your mamma!)

• Half a cup of chopped apple, any variety that is not too tart

• Sparkling water to top until it fizzes like a good mood

Pour into pretty glasses. Sip. Beware: it’s sweet.

Singing may follow.

Then step onto the porch and let Barcelona memories float back.

Years ago I went with my grad school group to an energetic, colorful Flamenco show in Barcelona where potent ruby red sangria made the rounds from hand to hand.

While I could not immediately find a photo from that night, I uncovered this unfortunately shadowed picture of me in front of Gaudí’s Casa Milà, also called La Pedrera, a wavy stone dream on Barcelona’s Passeig de Gràcia.

The building looks alive, balconies curling like sea foam. Word Raccoon is still miffed she did not tag along to prowl those rooftop chimneys and eavesdrop on the ironwork. I can almost hear her squeaky protest: How dare you go without me. But that day it was just me, a bright Catalan sky, and Gaudí’s living sculpture.

Word Raccoon, you would have loved Park Güell, another Gaudí creation.

Now are we going to write, WR, or refill our glasses?

I vote for writing. I’ve had enough to drink for now. 

Today Word Raccoon and I spent entirely too long mulling over the terms dramatic irony and proleptic irony. While we knew what both of them were, we had not heard the latter called that, and we thought long and hard about it all. And what it meant in context, naturally. 

Then we heard part of a Neruda poem quoted on Only Murders and of course we had to look it up, read it: “Death Alone.” 

We were going to continue reading a novel, but after that, no, no, then we had to pile poetry books on our writing desk as if they could warm us after that gorgeous but heavy poem. 

We put on Father John Misty, y’all, God’s Favorite Customer. That’s never a good sign. I don’t think I’m going to have an easy night with this young’un, this raccoon with her heart in her hands saying her eyes, her eyes ache. 

It’s not even dark yet, and the cats are watching the street and so are we. Our acute sight caught a sideways glimpse of the neighborhood fauna yesterday, but we are greedy. We will pretend it was enough.

Reader, it was not. 

The sky is closing her pink robe with a “come here now, come here,” like she can comfort a heart that thinks too much. 

Yes, a thinking heart. The brain can’t do any real harm. You expect that old bastard to swirl and give you sludge water to drink. It’s not until you let it transfer to your heart that you’re fucked. 

I let Word Raccoon write a few poems this evening so far, but they’re just wild vines smothering the trees out front. They are unlikely to do more than occupy her mind, like how the cafe owner asked her Monday if she plays word games and she helped him find two words on his phone and now she remembers the game she used to play and oh yes, should she download the app again because weren’t we all supposed to boycott it but maybe it’s time to not? That would keep her occupied.

So the writing, lately, has been poemish, but it’s either too heady and steady or too fragmented and strange, like it’s been flossed from the back of my mind and see, this is what WR comes up with if left to her own devices, dammit. 

Today’s poems: 

At the Page Like Neruda

The Approach

Could’ve Been Wrong (About Meter) And truth is, I didn’t nuance my argument and I knew it when I wrote it but damn, babe, why I got to do all the work? Take a synaptic leap, am I right? (I’m jesting, I am.)

Unrelated: 

The porch light before the lights just came on (the lantern), and it feels like that should be a song lyric. What do you think? 

Soon I will go from the seeing to the seen. That’s vulnerable either way. 

I was dreaming today of a stone cottage in England with white trim. Do you suppose there are any of those to let? 

With a winding path through trees.

And a writing annex with tons of light, a table and chairs out front. 

A gravel road. (They get a bad rap.)

A shop where you can buy bread and cheese daily. 

Oh, and a nearby farmers market full of so many colors you don’t know whether to buy tomatoes and eggplants and tulips and Neruda’s wet violets or paint them.

But do you need paintings if your eyes are ever full of them? 

And why aren’t flowers a part of our RDA? And could I ever grow a green thumb? Eh, someone has to keep the florists in business, I suppose.

Why did I ever consent to gray? 

(Do you suppose a writing annex could also hold an easel or two? Word Raccoon and I like to dabble. Do you suppose we could ever get over the fact that maybe we’re not perfect artists and remember the joy that swells when you freaking put hand to brush, hand to keyboard? I’d like to watch the flight of your brush, WR says. It’s a signature. That nosy thing wants to know every damn thing, doesn’t she?)

Maybe one corner could have a stand filled with fun instruments for when the poetry wanted to speak with a different voice.

Oh, comfy club chairs and rows of novels.

I cannot even talk about that bricked kitchen in my mind, the smaller the better.

Let’s replace the grass with violets and all things flowering and walk among that instead. Who said grass must make up a yard?

I mean, those English poets wrote a fuck load of poetry in the English countryside. Must be something to it. (We will not talk about those naughty boys who ended up in Rome. Much still to be said about them.) 

Do you suppose it’s fair that FJM has to share his heartache like “Here, have a piece of toast. Fancy a slice of bacon?” to make his dough (see what I did there?) and yet out here tonight, I am grateful for him. 

Each song seems to hear me. I don’t want to read, I don’t want to watch another stupid Youtube video. I’m just listening to him talk me down. 

Writing? She will do. 

Where were we? 

Isn’t that how things become real? Don’t we imagine them first? 

I just listened to the whole album and I’m not done with this yet? Repeat. 

Word Raccoon is shaking her head. She says she thought she was the dramatic one. 

Not tonight, WR. Not tonight. 

She’s capering around the porch and reminding me of those fun earrings that are on their way.

Those are for you, WR! You insisted. 

She hands me a seashell to clutch. It’s a thick one that always puzzles me because it feels like it’s made of cement but, of course, isn’t. It’s ear shaped and has tiny pinholes in it. 

You can pull at it, twist it, but it’s not going to break. That’s reassuring. It’s been around a long time, Babe. Something that ancient isn’t going anywhere any time soon, I remind myself.

WR puts my hummingbird pin in it. 

It fits perfectly.

More poetry talk:

Yesterday’s poems:

(A Fragment). That’s it.

WAY EARLY yesterday: (these all go in the Threshold collection which I like but is all ideas…IDK how I feel about that. Ha! Feel about an idea collection…) 

Devotion 

Stile

Wake Up

(Redacted)

Day Before: 

Poetry on the Line

See N Say (fragment)

Drawer Cheese (no idea! A bad poetry day)

You Sleep (fragment)

And now I’ve switched to Kelly Clarkson. Back to bop time. 

Maybe my eyes still ache, but I will survive. C’mon, I always do. 

And admit it, you kinda like that I get so undone. Not that that’s why I do it; it can’t be helped. You’re just seeing a live spiral, dear reader. 

Good night to us all. 

Now playing: Xanadu, by Olivia Newton-John

I’m writing a series of poems I’m tentatively calling Threshold. 

When Word Raccoon and I read Jane Hirshfield’s “Writing and the Threshold Life,” the final essay in Nine Doors, we looked at each other, eyes wide. 

Early on Hirshfield writes, “Every poem is a kind of threshold—between silence and speech, between the inner and outer worlds.”

That line made my fingers itch to write. I began typing as fast as I could.

I mean, how deep is that sentence of hers? Wait, that feels inadequate. It’s true and reveals the importance of poetry. It’s translating the inner to the outer, right? (That’s still a wimpy characterization of it, WR insists. Hey, I’ve been away, I’m just back, and my brain is doing laundry and wondering if I should run by the grocery.)

I was on the porch of the local coffeehouse when I began this poetry cycle, and the sound of a closing car door caught my attention. It belonged to a woman I met years ago. We met in this very café when we shared a table by chance and kept talking by choice.

She works with animals and carries that quiet, steady spirituality that makes small talk feel like a waste of oxygen, which suits my contemplative side beautifully, and this newest collection perfectly. 

Reader, Word Raccoon (my inner chaos mascot), began fretting that this unexpected encounter would knock the poem clean out of my head. I was delighted to see this dear woman and told WR to stop it. 

“You are not Coleridge and this is not Kubla Khan. Nobody’s about to steal an opium dream from you. Xanadu will be there another day,” I told WR. 

I hugged my friend and told her to grab a drink and come back.

While she was inside, I gave Raccoon a talking-to: People before words, WR! I insisted she clear the table, though she growled and insisted on keeping her phone on it. I allowed it. 

I know that’s unflattering to reveal, that the raccoon sometimes has to be reminded to be present, but it’s just true. And it does not mean that she does not welcome visitors. In fact, particular ones always help her write better, whether they mean to or not. 

And I’m so glad I was able to spend unexpected time with my friend, because she told me such a generous story of helping a family who isn’t hers at all, simply because they needed it.

When I praised her for it with tears in my eyes, she waved it away, which fits her way perfectly. She had given out of her abundance and swore she had gained so much herself from it, she said. Such a beautiful soul. 

I nosed around enough to find out that she’s surrounded by people who won’t let that kindness be exploited, and I relaxed. (We must protect those saints among us.) 

It was good catching up with her, and I could feel the poems swirling above my head as she left. I had known that she would bring them with her unawares, and she did. 

When she left, Word Raccoon blinked at me. Now? Can we write now? 

“Now,” I said.

We wrote four or five more poems immediately, all of them about thresholds, to join the poems we already had from the morning. 

Hirshfield closes her essay by describing the poet as “a dweller in the threshold life… asked to be permeable, to be shaped and changed by what is met.”

Yes, yes, yes! 

“See, WR? I told you to trust that the words will come.”

Some days the universe gives you a poem. Other days it gives you the person who makes the poem possible, or reminds you of the one who taught you to notice in the first place. 

WR says that’s where her favorite poems are. 

This feels about as inelegant as a post can be, but that’s all I can ask of it right now. 

Now Playing: My Life Would Suck Without You (Kelly Clarkson)

I was trying this weekend to pack for a short upcoming trip.

Word Raccoon opened the suitcase, pulled out some clothes we had forgotten existed, and then wandered off to wave at passing cars like she’s the pre-fall parade marshal. The suitcase is still on the bed, still open. Mostly empty.

Instead of finishing my list (which includes “actually put things in the suitcase”), I ended up reading Mary Oliver again. A Poetry Handbook.

I haven’t touched it in years, not since the days when poetry felt like some volatile chemical reaction I kept trying to mix, only to set the tablecloth on fire.

But I’m different now. I write poems. I submit them. Sometimes they even find homes.

This time, the book didn’t scare me as much. In fact, I even felt brave enough to quibble a bit with her use of the word and even light encouragement for metrics. I have multiple reasons and not time to explain any of them just now. And I’m likely being cheeky, pedantic, and ignorant, so… my apologies. But I learn best when I can debate an idea or at least engage with it in writing.

I wrote this “poem” as a response to her advice. And though occasionally, I confess, WR breaks out in rhyme, it still gives me the heebie-jeebies to find myself doing it unless I’m writing a song. (The exercise below is meant to be read with tongue solidly in cheek, Babe.)

Rhyme makes it feel like I’m making the language fit the container rather than letting that “spontaneous overflow” be just that. To me, that suggests artifice, which I find to be the opposite of art. If I have a character tell another “I love you,” for instance, in my novel, she may not necessarily use pretty words and she’s sure as hell not going to rhyme. 

She’s going to get out whatever words she can, probably, and then run away.

Unless she doesn’t. Unless she’s a tree with poetry as sap and is tired of running.  

Also: I know the birds-and-rice myth has been debunked, so don’t @ me, loves, please? LOL. My writing exercise needs it. 

And it’s just an exercise, so please don’t mock it. Gentle chuckling, however, is encouraged. Word Raccoon says she likes your chuckle. Don’t ask me how she knows. The Raccoon knows all. 

Meter, Meter on the Shores

(after Mary Oliver)

Meter meter on the shores,

bouncing language sounds like lore.

Stuff of fairy tales, stuff of spells.

Who can carry such music?

Who can hollow out a poem’s core?

Fall comes, fall goes.

Meter’s too on the nose,

like pumpkin spice, or weddings and rice.

Except, wait, now we use birdseed.

See, that’s why we don’t use

the tools of before.

Because like birds and rice,

the results aren’t nice.

Okay, I think I am going to actually open my novel now and take a gander. What does it want to be today? 

Word Raccoon says she doesn’t much care. She’s just hoping for a snack soon. 

P.S. A couple of clarifications from an earlier post: 

1. I have nothing against thrift shop resellers. In fact, when eBay was pretty new and easier to sell on, I helped make rent money in Nashville a few times selling online. I’m just talking about price gougers or people with no heart. 

2. No light fixtures were harmed in the making of my bookends. Museum putty is perfect for using in part because it can be easily removed without hurting the glass. (Also, I can’t stop imagining those with lights added. That has to happen! I think I might have a couple of mini light strands hanging around somewhere. Stay tuned.)

Word Raccoon didn’t spot them first.

Someone else did, a thrift shop patron with a good eye for hidden things who generously pointed them out without purchasing them because they don’t collect glass. WR is thankful for that.

These two frosted glass shades sitting quietly on a thrift shop shelf, their stepped shoulders stacked like little Deco skyscrapers haunted Word Raccoon all week long.

Because she almost bought them but didn’t know what she’d do with them.

And when she decided she did know, turn them into bookends, she went back for them.

Grateful they were still waiting. (Of course they were.)

Grateful she could rescue them and not have to imagine what might have happened to them instead. Bought up by some greedy reseller (nothing wrong with reselling, I’ve done some myself, but WR is being self-righteous here because she wanted these), put in some dusty cabinet to never see the light of day until an estate sale many years in the future. No! WR does not like beauty to be hidden! 

For a single dollar each, she brought home this pair of 1930s Art Deco slip shades. These fragile pieces once nestled into metal sconces in old cinemas and parlors, glowing from behind with the glamour of another age. The color shifts like mood lighting: apricot or peach satin by day, blushing rose-pink in lamplight.

How perfect are these?!

Collectors call them peach satin, rose satin, sometimes even apricot glass. The light changes the shade of these lovelies, which makes them even more wonderful. (In the thrift shop lighting, they looked more pink. Hence my post from the day before.)

Whatever the name, they glow like pink champagne poured into frosted glass.

They’re not technically perfect. They have a little chip here, a scuff there, but that’s part of their charm. Life is always a little chipped and imperfect, and still worth quite a lot, wouldn’t you say? 

Sometimes I buy things with flaws (even clothing) because they feel more real that way.

Researching these, I discovered that even as-is, a matched pair might bring $200–250 or more on the collector’s market, especially since intact pairs are increasingly rare.

But WR isn’t thinking of selling. Ever. 

She scurried to the closet once she snagged them, dragged out a pair of floral metal bookend frames she had an extra set of, and with a dab of museum putty (Why does she have museum putty on hand? Because she’s a trash panda and collects things. And btw, the putty will not harm the glass!), secured the slip shades.

Suddenly they weren’t just forgotten bits of lighting, though now she’s wondering if she missed an opportunity: she could’ve added lights to them and had lighted book ends. 

Maybe she’ll still figure a way to light them. Though WR says her enthusiasm for them is light enough.

I tend to agree.

They became glowing Art Deco bookends in her hands, little monuments of thrift shop serendipity.

Now they sit affectionately nestled together on the shelf, part salvage, part sculpture, part history lesson, proof that it makes sense to go back for the treasures that end up lighting our lives. (Or holding our books in their arms.)

Word Raccoon is preening, tail fluffed, eyes sparkling. She’d share one with you if you had space for it. 

No, she knows you want her to have them for her books. 

Especially the one she’s currently writing.

Now Playing: She’s in Parties by Bauhaus 

So the medical group I go to asked if I wanted to take part in a DNA study to check for inherited traits and health risks. 

Sure, why not? They drew blood (no spitting in a tube like I was gearing up for a 23andMe llama audition), and a week or so later, voilà!, a personality roast courtesy of my genome.

What they got right:

• Curly hair? ✅ You got me. Wildly so. Apparently I received genes from both parents on that score.
• Blue eyes? ✅ Check. (They guessed blue or green. Mom: blue. Dad: greenish/hazel. Me: blue.) 
• Short? ✅ Hovering right at 5’4″, which is technically average for American women but let’s be real, in the world of high shelves and concert crowds, it’s short. Dammit.
  
• Freckles? ✅ Oh yes. My face used to burst into a full confetti cannon of freckles every summer, and my arms in particular still carry the speckled story.
  
• Power athlete? What does that even mean? Word Raccoon and I both know I’ve got power, thank you very much. Literary, emotional, poetic, maybe even mutant-level when I’ve had Coke Zero. But athletic power? Hahahahaha! Or is that a TBD?? WR insists I must claim it, whatever it means. 

She wants it. The Raccoon always gets her way.

What they got wrong (and WR cackled):

• Don’t like cilantro? Excuse you. I love cilantro. We are in a relationship.
  
• Don’t like chocolate or sweets? Oh honey. Just ask the Snickers wrappers in my purse.
• No endurance?  I ran half marathons, plural. So yes, I can outrun your nonsense, slowly but determinedly, at least in my mind nowadays. So says Word Raccoon, who is insulted. Shall she list the things she has endured? What, that’s not what you mean? Oh. 

There were other “insights,” some also wrong, some I’ve never tested and they are ridiculous and I’m not even going to mention them, a couple probably right but I’m not going to acknowledge them either, such as I don’t need lots of caffeine. (Which I guess I just mentioned.)

Word Raccoon growled when she heard that. “It’s not need, it’s want.” That’s the fuel she runs on. How are we supposed to write whenever we want if we don’t use caffeine? And yes, WR and I are aware that some people can run on sheer charm and literary wit alone. But we prefer a little chemical romance in the bloodstream, thanks.

Then they said we are early risers. We ARE, but that we’ve trained ourselves for. Our first year of college we chose classes that all began at noon or later so we could sleep in, much to our roommate’s consternation, because we slept as late as possible. 

The next semester she and I took an 8 a.m. speech class together. Not sure how she talked me into that, but clever of her. 

Thank god the professor was hilarious and not scary at all because I had to give speeches at 8 freaking a.m. while a terrified first-year student. But I got ‘er done and sadly, that was the only class I ever took with my roommate since she was not an English major. 

Health stuff:
Negative across the board. Whew. Always nice to get a clean slate from the tiny inner lab coats. They tested for several important conditions and diseases. While there are no guarantees, I can rest easy on all of the fronts they tested for. Probably? Because if they thought I didn’t like chocolate…

Ancestry:
Broadstrokes only, no familial connections work done. Western European, mostly British and Scots-Irish. Nothing shocking there. I already knew this, but I appreciated the confirmation that I’m made of teabags, rainclouds, melancholy fiddle music, and the occasional bar fight in verse form. Are we surprised? If you knew of my fiery maternal grandmother, you’d know this tracks. 

So, I guess Word Raccoon and I are mostly healthy, moderately magical, and just in part genetically misunderstood. Word Raccoon wants to frame the results while eating a Snickers bar and drinking a Coke Zero. (Except Snickers are not dairy free. Dang it.)

You know, I really ought to look into getting sponsored by CZ. But then I’m already poetically sponsored, aren’t I?