We can write our own mathematical rules. We can do anything we want.

When I arrived at Picasso’s on Wednesday morning, I chose to sit at one of the little pumpkin’d tables. I know half of The People Out There are like, “Oooh! Pumpkin EVERYTHING! Wahoooo!!!” and half of The People Out There are like, “Go to HELL, Pumpkin Spicers! You can just go to hell right now!!!” and the third half can take it or leave it because they have better things to do (like WORLD PEACE or CURING CANCER) and I’m over here in the corner like, “So, I dig a pumpkin muffin every once in a while. I also like Christmas movies all year round, summer gives me migraines, yarn and pens and bread pudding make me insanely happy, and I refuse to kill flies. What of it?”

Flies: We had something like 2,402 flies in our house a few weekends ago. I’m not sure where they came from or why our house became a destination for them, but I’m happy to report that I opened windows and danced around the house until every one of them (mostly) had been “helped” back outside. Zero kills. Does that make me 20% Buddhist? I believe it does.

Thursday morning after I dropped the girls off at school, my car filled with the stench of salami. A few weeks ago, as I drove past the hospital where I thought she had died, my car filled with the scent of my grandma. (My mom assures me that Grandma died at a different hospital. Still. Weird.)

Fall is here. Shawls and scarfs. Scarves? Scarfs. Mufflers and cowls. Cardigans. Clogs and fingerless mitts and hot tea and marching bands and orange and brown and a few nights ago I enjoyed a gummy bear margarita and it was weird but good. Yesterday I couldn’t breathe out of my nose and I was saying things like, “Ed leased id cabe doday add nod esdherday.”

I did a shot of tequila once. ONCE. I chased it down with a fistful of shredded iceberg lettuce because there was nothing else nearby. Oh, college.

Chocolate Chip Cookie and Graham Cracker enjoy watching Bondi Vet because it reminds them of the semester they spent in vet school.

I colored my hair this morning. Half of me is like, “Why in the hell can’t you just AGE like a normal person? YOUR HAIR IS 20% GREY! Hide it under a bushel? NO!” The other half is like, “Eh, I wear lots of black. Why can’t my hair match my shoes?!” (The third half can take it or leave it because I have better things to do, like scoring the very last available funnel cake at a marching band competition and hanging bird art on our wall.)

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