In the manner of my people...

...I shall drink a little too much, get a little too emotional, and go to bed too early.

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Home: four people, five TVs, four dogs.

For whatever reason - call it irony or what you will - my whole day has been inundated with talk about dogs. Three members of my family have asked if I'm planning to get another dog. One person asked me if I read a story about dog fighting. Tonight, my mother found a stray that she wanted to talk about the right thing to do to help.

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From the book I brought home to read:

She said, "What are you going to do out at sea?" and I said, "Don't worry about the future."

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My parents have been renovating. Tonght I was forced to ask, "There are two buttons on the new toilet. What do they do?"

I feel like my parents' home has become a weird hybrid of "My Name Is Earl" and "Tetsuo II: Bodyhammer."

Go on. Try to reconcile that. Netflix and Advil will help.

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And now, to bed.

Assorted Lines from the Journal

The heater in my apartment makes strange creaking noises in the walls. I was to go to a party, but I couldn't. I felt sick. Groups make me tired, even on good days: all that networking and shaking hands and small talk. There was work to do and nothing to come home to, so why leave?

I don't go down the back stairs. I cannot look at the park.

I don't look under the coat I wore, collapsed over all those things. I thought I'd give it away for its proximity, but now I can't stand to lift it.

I try not to sneeze. For whatever reason, you loved that. Each sneeze, a phantom limb.

There's no snow out. Finally, I had something good to say about it: that it gave you a little pleasure to eat once, to run through. Perhaps I am cold enough without it now.

My friends are blooming with babies. Thinking of it in the shower, I coughed out to the steam and the empty room: it's springtime somewhere.

At night, I wake up - less now, but still too often - and reach to your empty spot. Sighing, I repeat to myself that there is work to be done, even if there is nothing to come home to.