So lately Kizzy has been a bit of a feline asshole.

I think it's because we're almost out of his expensive prescription cat food and normally he has his bowl refreshed several times a day.

Due to present circumstances, he is eating leftovers.

It just goes to show: Anyone can develop First World problems. Even a pound cat.

So today he tried to show me his vampire teeth, which is what we call the face he does when he's ready to fuck your shit up and he kind of half opens his mouth so just his bottom canines show like he thinks he's Jack Nicholson. I was all, "No, cat, I worked all day and ran five miles and rode a horse and you can kiss my big white ass if you think you're going to bite me, but he honed in like I was Buttonsworth and this was the Sumo Olympics of catdom. So I blew in his face and put him in time out, because that is what adults do. Although I may have yelled, "I am the alpha," at the same time because I have too many damn people in my life right now who seem to forget I am the boss of me. Including my little black cat.

So. Did you have a shitty day? Take a deep breath and fill your lungs, then scream, "I am the alpha!" You'll feel better. Trust me.

When I was younger, I was always positive I was right.

The older I get, I realize all our politics are the same. Only the hero is different.

My father has a saying: "Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug."

That echoes in my mind almost daily. I don't relish being either, but I get we are all both, depending on the situation.

With the national events of the past few weeks and my own usual tendency to absorb emotion wherever I find it, I've grown agitated. It primes me to be the asshole.

That's not a great feeling, to realize you actually want to turn people away at the door, just because you're mad.

That's where I've been, though. Even though that's not how I see myself.

It's disconcerting to realize you could be the stone stuck in a craw, the branch across a road. But we all believe we are heroes of our own stories, and that's important to remember as we move through the world.

Everyone thinks he or she is right.

And therein lies the rub.

"Mama," she said, "eventually I suppose I'll have to get SnapChat and Instagram because it would be weird if I didn't have it. But I'm waiting, because I'm afraid I'll get caught up in it."

I looked guiltily at my phone.

"You're wise," I said, wishing I were as smart as she is at twelve. "There's a lot of danger in caring too much whether strangers like you."

Sometimes, I feel like a goat. Bleating. Because I am so useless.

Last year at BlogHer, I went to a panel about white privilege, among other things. I was one of the fewer than 10 white people there, and I was ashamed. Not to be there, but that more white people weren't.

I should've written about it then. I don't blog so much anymore. But that's not an excuse.

It's not intentional, not to write. It's that with all the bullshit that's gone on in the past two years (the past 1,000 years), I'm starting to wonder what people think of me. I haven't been able to achieve any change. Not that I have delusions of grandeur. It's just ... am I just a goat?

It is even privileged to wonder such a thing, to think my voice should matter. I want to speak, to show solidarity. But I also recognize that to speak is to interrupt, at this point.

I don't want to interrupt.

I don't want to bleat.

I don't want to be silent, lest that be seen as acceptance.

I sit in audiences, listening to my friends speak of racial inequality. I sit to bear witness and show my face. I'm not sure how my friends interpret my presence. I hope they see me as supporting them, not inserting myself.

I find it hard to believe we haven't come farther. I find it hard to believe we've come this far.

I still can't fathom any person ever thought it was okay to "own" another person.

Sentient beings can't be owned.

I won't let my daughter ever forget that. We, white people, we screwed up so bad for so long. But we are all human beings.

Damn.

"So you're turning 21 tomorrow?" I asked. The kid had high color in his cheeks and a scar on his arm. He threw the rope with the strength of the young.

"Yeah," he said. He was from up East staying in his folks' Florida condo for the summer, mating on the parasail boat.

"So that makes me exactly twice your age," I said, toeing the dock. "I feel old." Sometimes I fool cashiers if I have my hat on, but only until they look into my eyes and see the years and the learning and the lines.

"But in twenty minutes, he'll be where you are," said the other mate, the older mate who hailed from Kansas City, too. We'd parasailed with him twice before. I liked him. He felt like home, even in the boat.

I glanced at him, confused.

"Remember, twenty minutes ago, when you were 21?"

And I did.

I glanced at my 12-year-old daughter.

Twenty minutes ago.

Yeah.

"In twenty minutes, he'll be your age," the mate from KC said. "Twenty years goes by in a flash."

I wrapped that up and put it aside in my head, because it was so true. Battened down the hatches for twenty minutes more.

Recently someone from Quotes Rain contacted me so I set up a profile. It has a tool that makes creating quotes more top-of-mind. (There are lots of ways to put text on pictures, and I know a lot of them, but it's reminding myself to do such things that is the kicker.)

Anyway, I created two quotes. I will probably keep updating these from time to time, but if you have a favorite quote and would like your name mentioned in the quoteboard (submitted by, etc.), please leave info in the comments! 

I leave tomorrow for New York for Spine Out. So nervous!

Last week I met with my trusted reader, my former thesis advisor, or the guy who I can hear say, "I liked parts of it" without wanting to kill him, about PARKER CLEAVES.

The nice thing about having a good reader is you have someone to draw out of you what you were trying to say (and failing to say) in the first place.

Sometimes I feel like it's pointless to try to write novels with a full-time job and a family, but really, it's the same task whether there are other things in your life or not.

At this juncture, I only really write once a week for an hourish on this novel. I write for work, I'm writing NOW, for God's sake, but that's different. This doesn't even make sense and I'm typing it on an obsolete app that for some reason is still on my phone.

However, I pointed out to my reader and to myself, I think about my books all the time.

Tonight I tried something new. I wrote out the 5-6 problems we identified. I numbered them. I picked (my energy being low) what I thought would be easiest to attack and started going through the ms dribbling sentences here and there like melted popsicles with the corresponding number. (Aided by visuals -- it was an already marked-up draft, so I had to highlight the dribble sentences literally in pink.)

I wrote until the iPhone duck quacked that the little angel's riding lesson was over and it was time to regroup at home for dinner.

I think I wrote maybe 300 words tonight. I'm sure this lame post is at least as long as what I wrote.

This is how it goes sometimes. You fight for the feedback, then you fight for the writing time, then the goddamn duck quacks and you're only organizationally closer to a finished novel.

But I still try. There's that.

Back in the lab again.

I LOVE HER.

What an amazing thing! If you're in New York and want to come, here's an evite for you. Feel free to forward, invite, spread the news. I'd love to see you.