The Creative Nest

Look, I need to ask you something. Do you think dogs should sleep in the bed with their owners? Before you answer, I should tell you that I absolutely think they should. In fact, I was so committed to this belief that I went ahead and bought my dog a set of pet stairs. Not because I was being fancy, but because the dog in question is a thirteen year old sausage of pure muscle with legs the length of a soup can. One day I watched her try to leap onto my bed and it looked less like a graceful jump and more like a bowling ball trying to clear a curb. So, out of pure self preservation for both of us, I bought these stupid little carpeted steps and plopped them next to my bed. Oh boy. What a choice that was. I thought I was setting up a nice little system. She'd trot up, hop in, and we'd both snuggle into the kind of peaceful sleep people write about in those calendars with puppies on them. I did not, not once, consider that I had just installed a dog escalator with no off switch...

I sent an email at 9:14 on a Tuesday. Short. Two questions, both of them answerable in a sentence. I got a reply at 4:47 that began with *Hi*, and then told me about a meeting that happened in March. Not a long reply. It wasn't that kind of dodge. It was maybe four sentences, all about budget cycles and timelines, and not one word about either of my questions. I read it twice to be sure I'd understood. I had. The questions were simply gone, replaced by something adjacent and cheerful. So I wrote back. I said, politely, just circling on my two questions below, pasted them again underneath like an offering. She replied Thursday. This time she said *sorry for the delay* and then told me the timeline she thought we were on. Which was a timeline. From someone else. On a different project. I have now sent four emails. Each one shorter than the last, not because I have less to say but because the length of the thing is what's wearing me down. Number four was basically a subject li...

I do pickup. Not because it's nice. Because the total at the end is smaller and I need every dollar of that savings to keep not happening. In store, I'm standing in the oil aisle holding a bottle of olive oil I'd never have bought, waiting behind a man with a cart full of things that are all on his list and none of them are on mine. He's reading the label on a bag of rice. I'm holding oil I'm going to return later, or at least move to the back of the fridge where it will live until it expires and then move to the back of the fridge again. Delivery is worse. The driver photographs my bag on the doormat like it's evidence, then it's out there all night getting rained on while I'm inside refreshing nothing. Pickup is curbside, which means I sit in the parking lot at 6:40 in the dark with my hazards on, watching a guy in a vest load bag number four into a car three rows over. The app says *Your shopper is on the way*. The app said that fourteen minutes a...