I’ve been thinking a lot about antiwar music, specifically songs coming out of the Iraq War period. One track that I keep coming back to is Le Tigre’s “New Kicks” off their 2004 album This Island. It’s quite a galvanizing song, sampling protest chants and soundbites from the likes of Amy Goodman, Al Sharpton, and Susan Sarandon, all speaking out against the Iraq War. What deeply bothers me, though—what I cannot get past—is that this song could have been made today. Twenty-two years later, “New Kicks” sounds eerily familiar.

Whenever I'm on a plane, I think of Jesse. I think of being hunched over my tray table in my window seat uncontrollably crying for hours on end with Me Porto Bonito and Everybody’s Gotta Live on repeat—the two songs I managed to download to my phone before takeoff, just a short time after I had learned he’d died. I think of tremendous loss. I think our final moments together, eating lunch in Koreatown, both of us so lost and miserable, incapable of reaching one another or understanding one another. Two black holes grasping at fumes.

Scribbled on the front in red marker were the barest of instructions: scatter in full sun. Or was it scatter in fall sun? I could not decipher the handwriting for the life of me, but after a little googling, “full” seemed the safest bet. Full sun and cold weather—not fall cold, but early spring. Poppy seeds like a bit of frost, but only before they germinate. Spring it was. And so, on a cold overcast morning in late March, I scattered the movie seeds bequeathed to me at The Encampments premiere in a sturdy ceramic planter on my fire escape.

On one hand, I don’t like regrets; I have very few. On the other, I fucking hate living in fear. My worst decisions, my most shameful moments, have been motivated by panic, distress, and worry. I refuse to alter my life before I’m ready because time might be running out. Of course with this mindset comes a significant chance of actually being out of time, a risk that weighs heavily on me. But I don’t have it in me to act on my insecurities. I want to want to have a kid, and that hasn’t happened yet.

I swear people able to see the good in their periods must have an easier time at it than me. They must not throw up or pass out or bleed heavily enough to fling blood across the floor reminiscent of an axe murder scene. They must not have erratic cycles, never sure if their next period will start in 20 days or 35 days, never knowing if it'll last 4 days or 10 days. Or maybe they do—maybe when it comes to pain and enduring it, I'm just a coward. More than 300 periods in, though, I know there's nothing good about them; they're punishing and grueling and I'm pissed I'm forbidden to bitch about them to more people.

Spring is springing, for which I am eternally grateful. I enjoy taking walks around my neighborhood, spotting the occasional one-off bunch of flowers or bright green blades of grass shooting up from the cold ground. While above, trees are starting to bud, their naked branches tinged with color and texture promising happier, longer, warmer days ahead. And completing my early spring explorations is the omnipresent choir of birds, boisterous and fervent, heralding the change in season.

Keeping up with the Trump administration’s incessant microaggressions is a Sisyphean task. But people do. And I am eternally grateful for their hardy resolve. Zeteo’s “This Week In Democracy” series, a day-by-day distillation published every Saturday, does a fantastic job at recapping the essential Trumpian chaos you may have caught, missed, or (if you’re like me) deliberately ignored in an effort to not spend the evening hyperventilating on the couch.

I don’t think I’ve ever dreamed about painting or mixing or laying down oils, but I found it very soothing, surrendering to the delicate sounds and smells and colors. When it comes to creating art in my waking life, I enjoy the individual parts much more than the sum itself. The process. The means. There’s a lovely line from Ursula K. Le Guin’s dazzling science fiction novel The Lathe of Heaven—about dreams, realities, and an unusual painting—that goes, “The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.”

I met Hoo-dini, a great-horned owl and love-child of Muppets Bert and Statler, at the Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge in Medford, New Jersey the other day. Perched behind his woody shelter, he bored his lazily blinking eyes into mine. As one of Hoo-dini’s eyelids retracted a bit slower than the other, he was constantly winking at me, the feathery old flirt.

Like the average American, to regain consciousness after sleep and strange dreams, I require coffee first thing in the morning. I can't think of a better way to orient myself than the aroma of fresh grounds, the liquid taste and temperature, the steam that rolls off its filmy surface, warming my skin and temporarily steaming up my glasses.

Apart from being happily married with a partner of 15 years, I really have no business giving relationship advice. But since today happens to be my sort of nine-year wedding anniversary, and since this is my blog, why not?

There’s a lot of evil, conniving shit that goes down in New York City. There’s also a lot of brave, furious pushback from its inhabitants. While the efficacy of said pushback is dubious at best (counterproductive at worst ☹), attend any NYC protest and you’re bound to be met with an overwhelming feeling of solidarity, a shared electric hum of determination and rage. You’ll know you're not alone in your feelings.