#watching the old-timey TV while lying on the floor

[runawaycarouselhorse]

https://www.instagram.com/alimiriart/

رابط حساب الرسام, للمزيد. ^^

عن نفسي, عندي ذكريات لمشاهدة التلفاز القديم مستلقية على الأرض, "تكبيس" والدي بالمشي عليه, و صنع خيمة من بطانية و وسادات السداري....

يااااه على الجمال 😍😍

اكيد كل واحد منا الو ذكرى مع وحدة من هالصور كلنا جربنا شعور وحدة من هالصور 

احلى ايام في الحياة 😍

[heloflor]

So, given that I didn’t have much time to work on fics recently because school, I’ve decided to relieve some stress by making a random representation of how I imagine Cavendish and Dakota’s house in their time-period looks like. And since I have no plans to ever describe it in detail in a fic, here it is ! Though, given how bad I am with designs, showing the house is mostly an excuse to infodump on domestic headcanons.

Regarding the last names, I didn’t make a typo for Cav. I like to imagine the two getting married way before the events of the show, with Cav taking “Dakota” as a last name, mostly because he got several siblings in-law on the Dakota side who adopted him on the spot.

And about the representation of the house : yeah it looks like shit. Since I can’t draw, I’ve decided to do something rather quick using MSPaint but yeah, not the best thing in the world. Though, if I get back to playing the Sims 3 at some point and end up making a Dwampyverse savefile, I’ll most likely try to recreate that house and could share a few pics.

I also went with a rectangular house with one floor instead of some futuristic-looking thing, mostly because I have no imagination when it comes to design. Though, you could still use the excuse that they want something more “old-timey” given their job or that they don’t have all the money of the world so they chose a simple house for the small cost. But yeah, by the end of the day, the choice is mostly because I can’t design shit.

But still one thing in my defense : looking at episodes that take place in the future like “Missing Milo” or “First Impressions”, it seems that most buildings are square-y with the roof being the weirdly-shaped part, with B.O.T.T. being one of the few exceptions. And looking at “A Christmas Peril”, the buildings are definitely more wacky but it’s 20 years later so…

I could also mention that I’m a bit unsatisfied with how empty the living-room and the bedroom ended up being but I’m drawing a total blank when trying to come up with the kind of stuff Vinnie and Balth would have that are linked to their interests. Though, maybe the excuse of them not being often at the house works ? Idk. Let’s just say I have ideas for the “basic” stuff, aka what you find in basically every single middle-class house, but draw a complete blank for anything that’s decorative. Still posting a map of the house tho because I don’t really consider it a work in progress if I simply have no idea and may never do. I’m very bad at design so bear with me on that one ! It’s not only about the house, it’s also about the fluffy headcanons !

So here’s under the cut some random info about the look of the rooms and furniture + a bunch of headcanons regarding Vinnie and Balth’s lives in this house. For each part of the house, you first have the info about how it looks first and then the headcanons.

Those headcanons are made with the idea that Vinnie and Balth are married (duh) but also, for a few, that Vinnie has three siblings + a few in-laws that he has a good relationship with.

(very long post ahead)

General :

- They bought the house in 2162, 2 years after getting married.

- It’s in the suburbs, or at least what the future version of the suburbs would look like. In other words, the presence of a backyard is debatable.

- There could be a garage for their time vehicle, so that they don’t have to go to headquarters every single day. And if not an actual garage, there’s at least some space to put it. In both cases, it would be near the bedroom’s side of the house.

- While the walls outside would have that futuristic “metallic” look, the walls inside would be a bit warmer. At the very least, the inside isn’t “future metallic white”, especially with Vinnie having photophobia.

- The intensity of the lights in every room can be adjusted. That way, Vinnie can put the dimmest light and navigate the house without his glasses. This is mostly useful for showering and midnight snacks.

- When they went house-hunting, Balth was the one who insisted that they needed a place with those kinds of lights. This is also the same kind of lights that Vinnie had in his now-former apartment.

- You know how near the end of the episode “First Impressions” you have Balth going into Mr. Block’s office ? Well, the way the door opens in that moment is how the door opens for every room of the house, perhaps excluding the main entrance (I like the idea of their front door being an “old” one, aka the “normal” doors we have today).

- Every room would have a spot that can create “tactile panels”, like some holographic tablet that can be used to change the settings of the house, for example changing the lights or the internet or even lock the doors and blinds.

- In 2175, when they were forced to leave the future, Vinnie stole a device from B.O.T.T. that made him able to create some kind of forcefield around the house that only he and Balth can remove. So, even if they’re not there anymore, the house still is theirs and can’t be sold to anyone else. And before you ask why B.O.T.T. didn’t simply send agents to bring the duo back and force them to open the shield : the forcefield works with hand-scan detection and Vinnie convinced Balth to use their left hands, the hands with the wedding rings. So if time-agents come knocking, they could try convincing the agents to let them use the bathroom first and they could wash their hands and use the soap to remove the rings. That way, the scan wouldn’t work and the agents would have no way of knowing why.

    Living room :

- There’s more furniture than showed here like souvenirs from previous missions or some random stuff that belongs to them. I just don’t have enough imagination. : /

- Likewise, the corridor has a few pictures or posters, like pictures that Vinnie didn’t have the space to put in his memory room but still wanted to display. Also, I want to say that Vinnie would display pictures of his family (sibling, in-laws and nephews) but I’ll see him more as having an album for family pictures, or a framed picture on his nightstand.

- There could definitely be a carpet or two. They would either be modern ones to fit the fact that they’re from the future or vintage stuff found in some of their missions. One of the carpets would be under the coffee table. Another would be in the big-ass space between the living-room and the kitchen, or in the corridor.

- The style is a mix between old and new stuff, with also a few things related to their interests. Like, for example, the couch could have an animal pattern or something (AND BY THAT I DON’T MEAN REAL ANIMAL FUR).

- Speaking of the couch, after looking up “futuristic couch” on the internet, they would absolutely have one of those gigantic couches that have like a bed attached to them due to how big they are. Btw I have no idea which company came up with this design and I couldn’t care less. It’s just that the design looks cool and would fit a futuristic house.

- The side table is a floating square, given how we see in “A Christmas Peril” that tables in the future don’t have feet anymore (that’s one way to protect your toes).

- The floor lamp is more futuristic. It’s like a white orb attached to a lamp foot.

- The TV is attached to the wall. The remote is some kind of holographic tablet, kind of like the house settings thingy.

  - This is where Balth would spend most of his mornings and evenings when they stay home. He’d just be sitting with a cup of tea, most of the time also a book, with the sun illuminating the room, just feeling comfortable and peaceful. The side table/cube was bought specifically for Balth’s tea. He would also use the lamp while reading in the late evening, either for the peace of having little to no light and solely focusing on the book or as a way for Vinnie to be in the room with the lights at the lowest setting. And speaking of Vinnie, he would sometimes join his husband on the couch, lying down with his head resting on Balth’s legs (cue Vinnie falling asleep, leading to a frustrated Balth who needs to pee but doesn’t want to wake him up).

- Since there’s a mini-table for when Balth drinks tea, the table right in front of the couch is mostly used for Vinnie to rest his legs on.

- And speaking of fluffy headcanons : movie nights. From time to time, aka minimum once a month, probably more, the couple would be in their pajamas cuddling on the couch while watching a movie, with Dennis resting in Balth’s arms.

For the movie choices, Balth would choose science-fiction, especially if there are any Professor-Time-themed movies, but also historical fiction (for some reason I tend to see Balth as having a liking for history ? I think it’s because of the way he dresses + his small rant about pirates in “Game Night” ? Idk honestly. It’s mostly a random headcanon that’s here for some weird reason). As for Vinnie, it’s mostly animal documentaries (Balth falls asleep halfway through but Vinnie doesn’t notice until after it’s over) or animated/family movies (the future equivalent of D*sney, S*ny pitcures, P*xar etc. Which are movies Balth would enjoy as well). For some weird reason I’ll also see the two of them being into mystery movies (crime-solving movies basically).

And if they sometimes decide to watch other genres, I could see Balth having a liking for some romance movies, because for some reason I like the idea of Balth being sappy. Besides, the guy is passionate when it comes to proving himself at his jobs and takes them pretty seriously in order to reach his objective. And given how he can be insecure and sometimes feels like a ball of anxiety, who’s to say he isn’t passionate when it comes to love too ? And no, I don’t mean passionate as in “making out all the time”, I mean passionate as in taking relationships seriously and making it work while also wishing to make sure his partner knows that he’s loved, even if Balth isn’t really the best at expressing his affection all the time.

On a different note, to get back to other genres : Vinnie would probably like horror movies. Because if cuddling in front of a sappy movie is great, having your husband show his love and trust for you by clinging to your arm out of fear is even better, nevermind the fact that you’re as terrified as he is.

    Kitchen :

- It’s one of those kitchens with two walls of cupboards/cabinets, both on the ground and elevated. One of the cabinets is used entirely for snacks. Because Vinnie.

- The wall separating the kitchen and the living room “has a hole in it”. It’s like you have a small wall with cupboards, a hole, and a wall connected to the ceiling with a few cabinets. Basically, you look up “kitchen cupboards” and imagine that the space in-between is a hole instead of the wall (why is it so hard to explain something so simple ?).

- This would be the most futuristic-looking room of their house. Looking up at references, they’re that Pinterest post showing a room with white cabinets with round corners and what seems to be slide doors. This is pretty much how I’ll see their kitchen, except bigger, with a different wall color and with one wall not being here (see above).

- The table is floating because of course it does. The chairs don’t tho. Also the chairs are as futuristic as the rest of the room. And looking up the internet again, the chairs are shaped like chairs.

  - So I put a stove but tbh I’m not sure how much these two would cook, given how in the show they’re always seen eating out (granted they don’t have a kitchen in their ‘apartment’ in Milo’s time). And given how most things seem automatized in the future, let’s just assume that the house can do most of the cooking itself with like a robot (aka plot-convenience technology) but still needs the necessary furniture and ingredients for the recipes. Also, if there’s an issue with their cooking system, they’ll probably know a few recipes and can feed themselves (Vinnie’s oldest brother Enzie would definitely teach his younger siblings a few recipes, at least enough to survive on their own. And he would be more than happy to teach his brother in-law as well).

- I put 4 chairs at the table but honestly I could see them keep 2 at all times and put the others in the storage room, especially the times they get very busy with their job for a few weeks and don’t have the time for social life.

- At some point, Balth probably tried to convince Vinnie to have better food habits and tried to put his snacks on the higher shelves. Not only did it not work because chairs exist but also it led to Vinnie getting frustrated. So Balth dropped it. Though, he would still try to talk Vinnie into working out to stay rather healthy.

    Memories room :

- Vinnie’s personal space. He basically saw the third biggest room of the house and went “mine now” and Balth had no issue letting him have it (hard to say no when Vinnie’s eyes shine like that).

- He already had a memory room in his old apartment.

- Basically, Vinnie brings back souvenirs from his missions, along with pictures he took, and put them on display. For more information, I made a post about it a while ago, so check it out if you want info on it.

And side note : I learned more about ADHD and autism later on and found out that the correct word for Vinnie’s passion for animals is a special interest, not a hyperfixation. The main difference between the two terms is how long your interest last. The reason I used “hyperfixation” in my post is because 1. I didn’t know that “special interest” was a term that existed and 2. people with ADHD kept talking about having hyperfixations and most people see Vinnie as having ADHD. So yeah, my bad for using the wrong term. And while I won’t change the current text from my post, especially with someone in the notes correcting me (I don’t want them to look like an idiot), I’ll definitely add a few words at the end of the post about it.

 - This is where Vinnie spends most of his time when at home, trying to keep the room in the best condition.

- There’s a window in the room but Vinnie condemned it in case some of his souvenirs were sensitive to the sunlight.

- The room is made entirely of shelves, with like four-five rows on the same wall. The shelves are either integrated into the walls or they’re floating because future. In any cases, there’s nothing around the shelves, it’s just shelves with stuff on it.

- When you enter the room, one of the rows of shelves next to you has all the animal-related stuff he gathered before starting a relationship with Balth. The rest of the room can have a few animal-themed objects but the pictures tend to be more linked to him and Balth.

- Likewise, when you enter the room, on the shelf you’re immediately facing, there’s a miniature recreation of their wedding altar with their wedding picture in its center. The miniature is made out of the future equivalent of papier-mâché and the altar is themed around time-travel with objects from all kinds of time-periods and cultures. And for those who might ask regarding the picture : Vinnie has a black suit and carries the bouquet while Balth has a white suit. Both have a hat that’s basically Balth’s usual hat (with the Professor-Time goggles, because themed wedding) but colored like their respective suit.

    Balthazar’s office :

- The room has quite a few libraries but this is mostly decorations. Basically, this room is more of an 1800th century study than anything, especially a rich/royal study. Yeah, for some reason I see Balth as having an office that’s just “rich 1800th century” aesthetic. I think it’s from the headcanon of him being a runaway prince 🤔.

- So yeah. The bookcases are vintage, the piano is your usual black piano, the armchairs are vintage and tbh Balth almost never uses them because he’d rather read in the living room, and the desk is vintage, though the stuff on the desk is futuristic. Balth is up to date with the technology he’s using to work, he just likes the older aesthetic for the rest.

- On his desk, despite literally living with the guy, Balth has a framed picture of Vinnie (again, I want the stubborn gay disaster to be sappy from time to time, with his love language being small touches and attention to details like for example being able to quickly see the kinds of foods Vinnie like the most so that when he’s in a bad mood, Balth can get him that specific food to make it better ; or learning Vinnie’s body language to know when he’s upset or bothered by something).

  - Balth mostly spends his time here to make the reports on their missions or work some administration stuff when needed. When he isn’t at his desk, he’s there to play the piano.

And yes, I throw out the window that line from “Backwards to School Night” that indicates Vinnie doesn’t know about Balth playing piano but tbh I ignore or question quite a few things from this episode such as : the line indicating that Vinnie and Balth don’t live together in their time-period since Balth doesn’t know Vinnie’s weekend habits ; the line about how the ray thing age you down to 90% your current age and yet baby Vinnie seems younger than the parents despite his adult self seeming older; the fact that Melissa read a book 16 times in the span of 6 minutes ; the fact that it’s called a “age regressor ray” and not a “age regressor ray-inator” (seriously, I am the only one always expecting Vinnie to say “inator” and being disappointed when he doesn’t ?).

- The couple absolutely sing songs together with Balth playing the piano. Or at least Vinnie would sing a song in the middle of the living-room and have Balth be annoyed by it, only for Vinnie to hear Balth play the same song on the piano later and join him.

    Bathroom :

- Not much to say here. It’s a bathroom. It’s futuristic-looking. The mirror is a cabinet. The tub is round. The bin comes in and out of the wall. The clothes drier also irons the clothes. The toilet is glued to the wall. The walls are dark gray or dark blue or at least a darker color so that Vinnie doesn’t have to dim the lights to the lowest level when he’s showering. There are also several little lights along with a main one so that Vinnie can light the small ones instead of getting a headache due to the brighter light. During lazy/slow days, Balth would take baths instead of showers (and Vinnie would want to join him to make out). Balth may or may not sing in the shower (Vinnie definitely does). That’s pretty much it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Guest/Storage room :

- Only used as a guest room when one or several members of the Dakota family are visiting the states and end up in the Tri-State-Area. So for 90% of the time, the room is used as storage.

- Bed’s not that big and very “squary”. Might or might not be floating.

- It’s mostly random junk that they don’t know where to put and don’t want to get rid of, like some stuff they got from their missions but that Vinnie doesn’t want in his room or some old things they want to give at a garage sale or that one Professor-Time body-pillow that Balth refuses to let go of while Vinnie just wants to trash the thing. The body-pillow being in the storage room in a junkpile was their compromise on the issue. Also, whenever someone might stay in the room, Balth makes sure there’s no way they will find the body-pillow (his sister in-law Bettie would never let him live it down).

- Not much to say here either aside from that.

    Master bedroom (the room in which the proportions are way bigger than the rest of the house because I have no idea what I’m doing) :

- I described the room quickly in my fic “nightmares” but yeah basically the room has several posters and pictures related to their interests, along with a bookshelf full of animal encyclopedias, time-travel facts, history books, Professor-Time fantasy books etc. There are also albums, whether it be family pictures or album of the two of them.

- Like for the living-room, there can definitely be more than what I described/pictured here. I’m just really bad at imagining the kind of stuff people would have in their bedrooms related to their interests. And speaking of which : at some point, there was the aquarium that Vinnie mentions in “Time Out”.

- Unlike the other rooms in which the windows have roller blinds (apparently that’s the english word for it ?), this one has curtains on top of it because Balth likes to open the window in the morning but he doesn’t want Vinnie to hurt his eyes. So with curtains, he can open them enough to light the room but not enough for the light to reach Vinnie’s face.

- The bed is pretty classic for a futuristic bed but with round edges and these two idiots definitely go crazy with the sheets design (animals, food, Professor-Time, past time-periods, stuff like that). Also, the bed is “open”. By that I mean that, if you look at futuristic designs, there tends to be some roof thing above the bed and linked to it. They wouldn’t have that.

- The nightstands are floating cubes.

- “Dennis’ chair” is just some random old wooden chair where Dennis stays most of the time. Balth almost never takes him during his missions and Dennis is a comfort object that Balth mostly talks to when sitting on the bed, movie nights aside. So the bear stays in the bedroom.

- The bookshelf would also be made of wood.

- The wardrobe is futuristic, with doors that can open by themselves with sensory detection. Also, unlike what that poor “drawing” shows, the wardrobe is “taller” than it is “larger”.

- The armchair is an egg chair.

  - They sleep

- They spoon

- Balth is the big spoon because 1. he’s taller and 2. he grew up sleeping while embracing a teddy bear and old habits die hard.

- When Balth goes to sleep or wakes up, he can’t help but play with Vinnie’s hair and give the small man a few kisses, feeling satisfaction in seeing his husband smile or try to pull away while laughing.

- Vinnie sleeps on the side closest to the window while Balth sleeps on the side nearest to Dennis.

- Balth’s nightstand has an alarm clock that’s basically just a holographic square with numbers on it, while Vinnie has an album or some random animal trinket. Vinnie’s alarm clock is not feeling Balth’s warmth against him. But if Vinnie has to use an actual alarm, the sound would either be some old-fashioned song or an animal noise (is this starting to get too much insistence on the “animal-loving” side of him ?)

- While Balth likes to read in the living-room, Vinnies likes it better to chill in the bedroom when reading. Also, during weekends and vacation days, Balth would sometimes read in bed before sleeping (yeah for some reason I really like the idea of Balth being a reader. I think it has to do with him being old or british ??? Weird brain is weird. And besides, if Balth reads, it would most likely be science fiction related to Professor Time). Vinnie uses this time as an excuse to cuddle.

- They have themed pajamas. Balth mostly has Professor-Time stuff (clocks, Heinz or Perry’s faces etc) while Vinnie has mostly animal-themed or food-themed pajamas.

- Vinnie sometimes sleeps naked in the summer. Balth is still trying to figure out how he feels about that.

- Random headcanon regarding Dennis : while he belongs to Balth who keeps him close when in doubt in order to vent or when he wants to get comfortable somewhere, I actually like to believe that, between the two, Vinnie is the one who talks the most to Dennis, mostly because Vinnie would just enter the bedroom and casually greet the bear, or he and Balth would have a dumb argument and Vinnie would playfully tell Dennis “Can you believe that guy ?” while pointing at Balth. Just, Vinnie being Vinnie and having random one-sided conversations with the bear.

And a little cute thing : while Vinnie really just talked to Dennis because why not, seeing the guy like the teddy bear so much would actually make Balth feel better about himself. I like to believe that grown-up men having plushies would still be seen as a ridiculous thing by most people (because toxic masculinity) and Balth got the habit of hiding Dennis when he was still trying to find the right guy for him. So seeing Vinnie have no issue whatsoever with the teddy bear and even liking him would definitely help Balth’s confidence, along with warming his heart.

- And since this post is all about headcanons : two things about phones and these two being sappy that have nothing to do with houses.

1. One day, Balth left his phone on a table and Vinnie decided to take a selfie with it because why not. After seeing that, Balth acted frustrated but ended up putting the pic as his phone background. Ever since, Balth’s phone background is a picture of Vinnie. The most recent one is from “We’re Going to the Zoo” with a picture of Vinnie holding squirrels in his arms while a third one is coming out of his pistachios-filled pants. The pic on the phone is a closeup, only showing Vinnie’s head and upper body. And for those who like angst, I’ll let you imagine how he must have felt having this as his phone background during the rogue arc.

2. Vinnie’s (numeric) phone password is 2703, aka march 27, the date of his wedding anniversary. The day is put first and the month second because Europe. Also, during busy weeks, this would be a good way for Vinnie to remember the anniversary.

(fun fact : I was trying to come up with scenarios for fics when I ended up thinking about Vinnie’s password and that number came to mind. So I just went “guess that’s their wedding date now”)

[dogpalace]

M*A*S*H

Petsitting: it’s tiring! But so much fun. I am at Animal Farm right now, winding down a month-long stint. I’ve enjoyed getting up early when the light hits the apartment’s north-facing bedroom windows; doing the pleasant chores of feeding the pets, scooping the litter (yes, pleasant, truly), and walking the dog in the beautiful park across the street. However, last night something threw a spanner in the works. As I relaxed in my bathrobe watching a final DVR’d M*A*S*H episode before bed—more about that soon—Matt called to report that our cat, Williams, was sick again and he wanted me to come over to assess the situation. It sucks being confronted with our pets’ mortality, so much more than with our own, or so I usually believe.

Don’t think me some kind of monster. I have reckoned with human mortality a fair amount recently. Anyone would agree who saw my tweets about my father’s living through Hurricane Maria last fall, which were… lugubrious. In addition, my stepfather Thomas had massively invasive heart surgery at almost the exact same time, the year after having had two brain surgeries to correct a hematoma. (Lots of things happen which I don’t tweet about, guys.) It all was terrifying. But Williams is part of our nuclear family; she’s so close to us, every day, every hour. The threat to our happy routine which her illness poses, then, is not exactly scarier, but scarier in a different, more immediate way.

Of course, though it was midnight, I threw clothes on and took the subway into Brooklyn to tend to Williams. Of course this should happen as I was in the middle of the steamy episode of M*A*S*H where B.J. has an affair with one of the nurses. As I rode home, I thought about TV and all the joy it has brought me, and miraculously was able to put myself in a good mood as I traversed the magical passageway underneath 14th Street that connects the 1,2, and 3 to the L and F.

I can’t believe I’m sitting here about to tell you all that M*A*S*H is good, but I realize I have to. As with most of you, it was in the background of my entire childhood. My dad, who’s a cinematographer, once remarked that the image of the helicopters in the opening credits was a great shot; later that week I saw a helicopter at a cliff’s edge in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon and shouted, “Great shot!” to no one. As I grew I took pleasure in learning all the characters’ names, which was not super easy for a little kid considering they all dressed alike in fatigues, except for Klinger, who was my favorite at that time. At school I once said the words “horse puckey,” lifting the old-timey profanity from Colonel Potter, and was very gently chided.

Then when I was an adult, and more particularly during petsitting jobs like this one where I have access to classic sitcoms on cable, I learned to appreciate it on a different level. Treacle and rapid quips and slapstick and deep emotion, plus a giant helping of antiwar sentiment, packed into a dinky half-hour show with a laugh track. Really good acting: the young Alan Alda at the center with his hair already graying, spouting wisdom in a Groucho voice; but also the broader comedy provided by Jamie Farr in the frocks and Loretta Swit and Larry Linville screeching at each other. Sweet, beatific William Christopher as the holy man. All this and Gary Burghoff, who delivers my favorite performance—Radar O’Reilly is frightened, earnest, and pure of heart though clearly touched in the head. Try re-watching the scene where Radar approaches a bombardier with a Messiah complex and asks him to bless his teddy bear, truly believing the guy is Christ. It will get you, dammit.

I arrived home to find Matt lying on the couch and Williams pacing the floor. A victim of chronic urinary infections, our cat was having a bad flare-up, going in and out of the litter box while crying confusedly. Since it was so late, we decided to wait for the vet visit until the vet was open, rather than spend an extra five hundred bucks or so at the animal ER. There are pre-loaded syringes of cat painkiller at our house, because this happens to her so much, so Matt had dosed her and waited until the crying stopped.

“This is it,” I told Matt. “We aren’t feeding her any more dry food.” With the decisiveness of a military doctor I dumped the bowl’s contents out and replaced them with a fresh lump of wet. Up until then she’d gotten a mixture of the two.

“Wow, look, she’s eating up!” he said after a minute. Williams was standing at the bowl and chomping the wet food with gusto, and even in her doped-up state she ate until it was all gone. Undeniably an excellent sign. Matt then left to help close the bar around the corner from us, and I babysat our cat, though I didn’t do anything at all except sleep near her. A petsitting expert knows that, often, the most important thing is not to leave them alone.

Earlier in the day, I had received an email from one of my old friends, a dogwalking colleague here on the Upper West Side. She told me that another dog walker in the neighborhood, an older man, died last weekend while walking dogs in the park. I remember this man from the years when my route was up there: I didn’t know him well at all, but he was one of the nicest people to greet on the pavement, always wearing a smile, always eager to say hello to a dog or a person. My father is OK for now—he got a flight out of Puerto Rico and decided to stay in New York for the winter. My stepfather is OK for now—his zipper scar will always look gruesome, but it healed. This dog walker, who was a little younger than both of them, didn’t make it.

When Matt came home at 5:00 I woke up, kissed him goodbye and got back on the train. How is Williams now? I haven’t heard anything yet this morning, and I’m hoping no news is good news. I woke up at 7:30 to walk the dog, feed the Animal Farm cats and, cheerfully, scoop the litterbox. Then I wrote this thing you’re reading. Matt told me to say a prayer for her. I’m thinking of the prayer Father Mulcahy said once, that I laughed at as a child, one of the first memories I have of laughing at the TV.

Now I lay me down to sleep,

A bag of peanuts at my feet.

If I should die before I wake,

Give them to my brother Jake.

Now that I have written a shiny new blog post (yay! I thank you for reading it!), I’m going to call Matt for a kitty update, and reassure him that I’m coming home tomorrow to live at our house again. Right after the call I’m going to watch the rest of my M*A*S*H episode to see how it ends for B.J. after his extramarital transgression. I have decided, at least for the next half hour, to be extremely invested in that.

[ive-been-out-walking]

It was almost comforting - the return of an old friend. A friend you fought with and then stopped speaking to for awhile, but then suddenly reappeared in your life. That sweet, aching familiarity. The tightness in your chest, shallow breaths. Quiet, insidious, velvety, like a very warm and heavy animal lying down on top of you.

___

The word felt too large - sticky - like a Butterscotch in my mouth. I turned it over a few times, nudging the edges with my tongue, trying to couch it with other thoughts. Smart thoughts. Independent thoughts. It still came out like Butterscotch. Saccharine, and a little old-timey. “Husband.” The cool girls in the matching haircuts and leather jackets exhaled seemingly coordinated puffs of smoke and giggled.

“Your husband,” one said in a strangled approximation of a sitcom wife. The other one stubbed out her cigarette with her Chelsea boot.

I laughed. I was in on this joke. “I know, right? I sound like someone’s mother. We’re getting so old right?” Sometimes the only way to get out is to dig deeper.

“When I get married, it’s going to be in a field, and all of our guests are going to officiate. Like, instead of a priest or whatever. It’s going to be very secular and like, humanistic,” said Haircut. “Sounds like of Manson-y,” quipped Boots, even though she was nodding.

I tipped my solo cup back and felt the cold vodka and fizzy soda water mix in the back of my throat. “It was so good catching up. Let’s get coffee soon,” I said, and walked back inside.

___

Four days ago I decided I didn’t want to take medicine anymore. Three days ago I emailed my psychopharmacologist. That night, I placed one of the small white tablets into a pill cutter I borrowed from a friend’s house and never returned, gently squeezed shut, and cut the minuscule tablet into two impossibly, ridiculously small halves. It felt absurd that a half of a pill, already so small, now halved and nearly disintegrating in my sweaty palm, could produce any effect at all. I shrugged, to no one but myself - shrugging alone is still a wonderful expression of indifference - and washed it down with a bit of warm Pamplemousse LaCroix.

___

Today I woke up and couldn’t do anything. Well, I suppose that’s a stretch. After an hour of lying prostrate in bed with the sun streaming in through the open section of roman shade, I laboriously rolled over and checked my email. Bank stuff. J.Crew sale. More than one feministy newsletter.

As I sat up I realized I had to pee, immediately. I scrambled out of bed, down the short hallway and sat on the toilet, still scrolling through my phone. The cat jumped into my lap. After a few pats, I nudged her off, got up, flushed the toilet and…. And what? What was today even supposed to look like? Things without beginnings or ends or deadlines swam in my vision.

I stood, pantsless, in the hallway, cat weaving maniacally about my feet, meowing wantonly for breakfast. Frozen, I tried to push myself toward the stairs. Downstairs is coffee, breakfast, a laptop, even the TV news if I can’t stand the silence (I never can). But it wasn’t enough. The floor felt progressively colder under my bare feet. The cat gave up and sulked on the top stair. I pivoted back towards the bedroom, stepping lightly (though no one was home to judge or hear me), and climbed back into bed.

___

It’s night time. And a Friday night. Not that that matters. Days of the week bleed together, like one long, amber-colored day. Dappled light fading in and out. I got three parking tickets because I didn’t leave my house for two days, simply forgetting what day it was outside. (It was street cleaning day.)

I cook. Not from recipes, but from memory and habit, thinking of what my mom’s hands look like when they’re cooking these same meals from memory. I mix a bit of Dijon and pepper into soy sauce, and then, without thinking, dip my finger in and taste.

I’m back in my childhood home with the linoleum floor painted to look like terracotta tiles. I’ve pulled a green and yellow step stool from the hallway to stand on, allowing me to reach countertop height. She’s making skirt steak and mixing soy sauce, mustard, and pepper to make a sauce for it. Her pantsuit is a little wrinkled, jacket off now, and her blouse is unbuttoned enough that I can see a very sensible looking, flesh-toned bra peeking out. She smells like leather, a little bit of stale coffee and Annick Goutal base notes, lingering from the morning’s careful spritz. The bright, unforgiving kitchen fluorescents shine a halo around her head, blonde flyaways catching the light and dancing. She tucks a disobedient piece of hair behind her ear and smiles down at me.

It’s Friday night. I’m a woman now, still younger than she was then but not by so much anymore. The mustard and soy sauce don’t really mix. The mustard sort of curdles, but I don’t actually care. I lick the spoon and pour the concoction over some chicken, putting it in the oven.

___

Everything suddenly feels so close to the surface. It’s bubbling up from the Mariana Trench of antidepressantland, three years dormant. I’ve read that there are creatures down there that evolve without eyes because it’s so dark that they become evolutionarily useless. I assume that’s what my anxiety looks like. A big fish with teeth and no eyes, swimmingly around in a very dark, deep trench. It’s searching for food but I’m trying not to feed it. Unfortunately, food is abundant in the form of unopened bills, flagged emails, and crippling self-doubt.

Weird, disconnected, unexpected things bring me joy like walking slowly around the reservoir listening to a podcast about forgotten moments in history, but when attempts at recreating that joy are made, they fall horrifyingly, blankly short. The following day I feel joy doing laundry. Methodically sorting it into piles, guessing which garment is which by touch alone (eyes closed). Watching the indoor succulents grow in their little ceramic pots, or putting something back on a shelf so that it fits perfectly. I try to remember what used to give me joy. It feels far away. I can’t really grapple with that today, anyway. I’m not feeding the fish.

____

From where I stand at the kitchen sink washing dishes, I can see directly into the neighbor’s kitchen window. It’s oddly cinematic - a cleanly squared-off rectangle of color in a sea of darkness. I don’t know them (this is LA after all), but from what I can see, they’re like us. Young, relatively well-off, slightly left of center. They also have a tabby cat.

The husband (boyfriend?) could easily look up and see me, seeing him, but it would be unnatural to look up that way and so he never does. His wife passes by and gives him a kiss on the neck. I blush now, feeling like I’m intruding on their intimacy. It’s not sexual, and so I feel even stranger. Do they know I’m up here? So close that I can see their sweet expressions.

My husband comes up behind me, putting his hands on my waist and laughingly asks if I’m spying.

I feel as if we’re two mirrors, reflecting diagonally back at one another through the windows.

_____

Tomorrow I’ll wake up and it will be Saturday. A day when relaxing and languishing inside with a book and many cups of coffee is celebrated rather than frowned upon. People will post things like “Thank god it’s the weekend” on Facebook and I will like them because I do like the feeling that I’m doing the same thing everyone else is. Today, we are all unemployed, if only for 2 days every 5. Perhaps all this fitting in will even convince me to go out, see a friend, figure out what to say when they ask me about my life these days.

My voice is a little hoarse at first. I haven’t said much out loud, not one to fill my own silence with my own noise. Sometimes the loudness of a coffee shop echoes off my ears after so much silence, pinging around wildly inside my head, making it hard to think clearly. Sometimes I’m just grateful to hear people’s voices that aren’t on my TV. I notice more now. The way a girl stands, one foot tilted in, as she writes what seems to be an emotional text message. The barista’s curly mop of hair that he self-consciously combs with his fingers while taking an order. The hot dad, holding his kid’s hand, aggressively not making eye contact with any of the surrounding women.

Going home feels like solace. Maybe it should feel bad but it doesn’t. It feels like being wrapped in a blanket right out of the dryer. The TV voices are keeping me company on low volume, only the consonants pulling my attention. It’s the pitter patter of quiet life.