Twenty years to the day before my wedding, my mother wrote one line in her journal:

You still do not like the car.

We have two cats, and for some reason our parents refuse to believe they’ve got grandchildren from us. But, to prove our cats are as good as kids, there is this: We have taught Oliver to fist bump.

Back up. We found Oliver in a parking garage in Orlando the December before we got married. It was crazy-cold, especially for Florida, and here’s this little orange kitty roaming around the parking garage. My roommate Samie, my future-sister-in-law Becki, Jesse, and his roomie Scott were there, and some others; we’d been filming a little movie we’d come up with (oh, college). We were on our way to Titusville for more filming.

And here’s this little spunky guy meowing, and I say, “Hi there, kitty!” or something like that, you know, what you say to cute little cats you see in parking garages, and then he just runs up to me and looks at me like, I’m yours. And well, what are you to do? I picked him up. I don’t normally pick up cats I see running loose in cities. But this one just seemed like one to pick up. So I did. And, then I couldn’t just put him down, couldn’t just leave him to freeze to death out there all alone. We asked the parking garage attendants whether he belonged to anyone, and after some confusion, off we went, cat in tow.

My parents kept him until Jesse and I got married. We both lived in college apartments that didn’t allow pets. Sometimes I’d sneak Oliver into my apartment for the weekend. Marianne called him “Puppy.” She doesn’t like cats. But she liked this one. And he followed her like a pup does. We still call him that sometimes.

There is something else you should know about Oliver. He has issues. He’s a bit, shall we say, emotionally needy. Namely, he can’t stand it if we 1. are sleeping past midnight, and 2. fail to feed him on demand (which would be around the clock). We keep baby-locks on our pantry and where we keep the trash. He has to sleep in the laundry room or we will be woken up multiple times. (My theory is that his last owners died in their sleep, and he’s been scarred for life.)

Once, I came home from grocery shopping. We were living in a third-floor apartment, and it took me two or three trips to get all the groceries inside. On my last trip, I heard a rustling in the kitchen, and when I got in there I saw Oliver, with his face in a loaf of bread, tearing it apart. He had eaten through the plastic and was enjoying some extra carbs. Later that year, Jesse’s parents were visiting and had brought some doughnuts with them from the hotel. I was still in the shower when I heard “No! Oliver, no!” and people running through the hall. He’d snagged a doughnut and run under the bed with it.

He’s eaten the fingers off of rubber gloves, the petals off roses, and the corners off books. He’s torn up carpet and destroyed molding around doors.

In case you’re wondering why we’ve kept him, there’s this: He’s got these enormous, adorable green eyes, and when he’s not hungry he’ll sit in your lap and purr like you’re the best person on earth. And, he learns tricks. He can sit, spin around, and jump. And, now, fist bump. Well, the best version of a fist bump that a cat without opposable thumbs can do. He can’t make an actual fist, but still, it’s rather cute.

And as much as it drives me crazy when he eats what I was going to give Jesse for lunch (today), I admire his spirit. He’s a little wild, but he’s smart. He’s lived on the streets; he’s markedly different from little mild-mannered Gracie, who has lived inside since she was about the size of a guinea pig. It’s that edginess that makes him who he is, and when you look at him, you know he’s always thinking, whether it’s about how to circumvent our pantry-protections, or about comfortable your lap is.

This is the day: the morning spent studying before the sun was really up; the mid-morning spent babysitting, pushing a stroller around a lovely, idyllic neighborhood with brick houses that are all different; a trip to the library to pick up books on philosophy. Simona told me about these little So-and-So in 90 Minutes books, so I grabbed all our library had—Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer, Hume, and Sartre. Plus, The Essential Kierkegaard, partly because I’ve read him before and want to read more, and partly because I am in love with his name. Sometimes I say it quietly to myself, just because I love it so much. Kierkegaard. Ah!

Lately, I’ve felt this drive to learn. Maybe it’s being out of school for the longest time, well, ever. A year and four months now since the MFA was finished. I’ve embarked on a personal quest to study the book of Luke forward and backward, and that’s part of my morning study. I also want to learn more about philosophy, about physics, math, history. It’s an almost frantic drive, like there’s something I’ve got to catch up to, but it’s the exact opposite of unpleasant.

Have you heard of iTunes U? I just found it today, and I am beyond thrilled. Tons and tons of courses from a variety of universities and colleges, all for download on iTunes, free! Well, I don’t know if they’re all free, but the ones I was looking at were. I downloaded a seminary course on the Gospels and Acts this morning—forty-some lectures about forty-five minutes to an hour each. And on them, you can hear the professor writing on the white board! I just about died with happiness.

Now I’m listening to the Beatles, Elton John, and Simon and Garfunkel on Pandora, getting ready to make a sandwich for lunch and maybe crack open one of my new library books or keep browsing iTunes U for more “classes” I can take. Oh, what a lovely Friday.

I saw a picture of my brother when I was in West Virginia a few weeks ago, a recent picture of him, and when I saw his face I felt almost like I’d been punched. Like, for a moment or two I couldn’t breathe. I haven’t seen his face for probably ten years. His hair has gone almost completely white. But there, his eyes, there that little smirk. He is hugging his little boy and a boxer puppy, his broad shoulders behind them, protective.

Even I don’t really understand my relationship with my brother and sister. They are my father’s kids from his first marriage. They were in their teens when I was born, and when I was far too young to remember, they moved to Colorado to live with their mother. I was raised an only child, but I worshipped “Bubby” and “Sissy” throughout my whole childhood. During the Gulf War, my sister was in the Navy and my brother in the Army, and they sent me postcards, spoons from Singapore, Israeli army knives. My mom and I made care packages and sent cookies and watches and pictures. We bought yellow-ribbon memorabilia from Wal-Mart.

So, there is the part that’s easy to understand, to communicate. The rest, I don’t know. My sister is in my life now, and that there’s been no ending makes the middle easier to pack away. But, my brother, an unanswered question. He visited us a few times. He talked to Dad on the phone. When my sister moved to West Virginia, he came to visit her, and we sat at the little Charleston airport before he left, and I was sixteen and had just gone to California for the first time, had dreams of attending Berkeley, wore red Florida State University sunglasses and baggy jeans and black VANS, and I had absolutely no clue how long it would be before I’d even see a picture of my brother.

I don’t know when the last time Dad heard from him was. I know he called Dad’s twin brother when my grandmother passed away in January. I know he’s got a little boy now, that he’s still out in California somewhere.

And that’s that. I don’t really know what it’s like to have a brother; I don’t really know what it’s like to not have a brother. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again, or if he would recognize me.

Just that picture, something someone printed from an email perhaps, and the face I’d know anywhere, the eyes I will never forget.

Yesterday afternoon, we drove to Bladen County to spend the day at Brandon’s parents’ place, having a “Peanut Boil.” For those not living in North Carolina, this is pronounced “Peanut Boll.” (Sometimes it sounds like “bowl,” and sometimes “bull,” depending on who’s speaking and how quickly it’s said.) We ate boiled peanuts and oatmeal raisin cookies and drank sweeeeeet tea and grape Crush. Brandon’s parents’ place is country, in all the loveliest ways. Driving there, we passed fields with rows of cotton, and we stopped at Bo’s grocery store for some hamburger buns, for the burgers we ended up not eating to save more room for peanuts.

I had never had boiled peanuts (whenever you see that, just say to yourself: bolled peanuts—it has to be one syllable, or it doesn’t count) before we moved to North Carolina. I’d seen the guys selling them on the side of the road, but that didn’t seem like something I’d want to try. But, these boiled peanuts are really something else. First of all, they’re huge. One peanut might be three or four inches long, and thick as a roll of nickels. You open the shell by biting the peanut’s “nose,” and if it’s a juicy one, there will be this heavenly salty, nutty broth first. Then, the peanuts, which are soft with a creamy texture. Mmmm, mmmm. We left with a gallon bag for us, and one for Warren and Sharon, who, sadly, couldn’t make it.

Next month is the North Carolina State Fair, which has, we’ve been told, fried anything (candy bars, pastries, fruit), ice-cold fresh milk, and things to watch: a demolition derby, a tractor pull (whatever that is), bluegrass, square dancing. Sometimes it strikes me that I am living in a place I am decidedly not from. I wasn’t technically from Florida either, but I lived there from age four on, so I might as well have been. I could say I wasn’t from there without actually feeling like it. And most of the time, I don’t think about it—I’m living in a beach town, and a beach town is where I feel I’m from. But then I drive a little west and I’m passing cotton and saying “peanut boll.” I wonder if I’ll live here long enough to forget I’m not from here. If I’ll stop feeling a little like a tourist (fried candy bars!) and more like a native. In a way, I don’t want to feel like a native. I feel Floridian with a bit of West Virginia thrown in. If I felt North Carolinian, who would I be?

If it happens, or if it doesn’t happen, if we stay or eventually move, if we end up with kids who have Southern accents, well, at least there’s always boiled peanuts.

Hello, Friday. My, what a week. Some actual work came in. I got up early. One day. Grew broccoli sprouts in my little sprout-container thing. Bought ribs buy-one-get-one-free at Harris Teeter. A million other things I’m forgetting. I am learning the joys of Pandora. And then there was the nearly three-hour meeting today about human trafficking in Wilmington. Oh, slavery. What a way to end the week.

I came home from the meeting and immediately took two Tylenol. (I always start with one to see if that does the trick, but not today. It was a straight-to-two kind of day.) Then, green tea. Then, The Daily Show because I needed to sprawl on the futon and chuckle a bit. Paid bills. Updated the budget. Continued to customize my “radio” stations on Pandora. Thought I’d spend the afternoon writing, but no way.

Tonight I’m doing Congo stuff. Shoot, on the same day as human trafficking? Seriously? I’m not sure where my involvement with either cause is going right now, but here I am attending meetings, talking about things like a gang in Wilmington—little old Wilmington—called the Murder Mamas, full of thirteen- to fifteen-year-old girls who to join the gang must have a baby and must kill someone. I am not making this up. Right now, I’d like to curse, and frankly I feel that might be wholly appropriate. And no, my children will not be attending public high school in Wilmington.

Okay, then. Now, I’ve got to get off the futon and eat something for dinner and go do the Congo thing. And then I’ll come home and relax and do the weekend thing. And then I’ll get up early next week, at least one day, and somehow, somehow I’ll figure out what I’m supposed to do, what my part is. All I need to do is my part. And keep stocked up on painkillers for the headaches along the way.

I did it! I finally got up at 6:00 a.m. (You can stop laughing now.) It only took about a month to accomplish this. I’ve had a handful of 6:30 mornings, and plenty of 7:00s, but today I finally made it up just a little after 6:00. Now we just have to see if I can repeat this.

As I mentioned earlier, we have Gracie on powdered Chinese herbs from the vet. (Our vet is a very kind man who wears tiny yin-yang earrings and prescribes things like powdered Chinese herbs.) The first day, I had to mix the herbs with some honey, put that mixture in a syringe (not the needle-type, the medicine-squirting-type), and squirt it into her mouth. Um. Easier said than done. I attempted this in the afternoon, and Jesse wasn’t home so I was on my own. Gracie may be small, but she sure can put up a fight. We ended up with the goopy brown honey mixture all over Gracie’s face, all over my arms and hands, and all over the kitchen floor. At one point, I had the bright idea of trying to smear some on her foot so she could lick it off. Ha. Yeah. Don’t do that.

The herbs are supposed to help her digestion. She’s had problems since day one with this, and we’ve tried all the different foods we can find to try. We’ve made our own. We’ve added canned pumpkin. We’re now at the point with the herbs that she’ll eat the powder when it’s mixed with her food, so at least there’s no honey involved anymore. I’m hoping this does the trick, but we’ll see…

Snapshots: Jesse shaving in the bathroom while I’m putting on makeup, both of us reciting the whole “she’s a witch!” scene from Monty Python. An impromptu crock-pot dinner of chicken with white wine, orange jest and juice, and sage from the garden. (At least the herbs have done fairly well.) Making a big breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toast, and then a day later cooking green beans from my parents’ garden with chicken stock and bacon, and the whole house stubbornly refusing to let go of the bacon smell until it got cool enough one day to throw open the windows and turn on all the fans.

Last night, I took a shower and put my hair up in pink sponge rollers. My mom used to put my hair in those before bed sometimes, and awhile ago I found a couple of very cheap packs of rollers, so I bought them and promptly did not use them. But, I decided to finally give them a whirl, so I put them in last night. As I lay down, I remembered just how awful it was to sleep with a head full of rollers, spongy though they are. In fact, I think the curlers are why I was able to get up early this morning. After the alarm went off, I couldn’t go back to sleep.