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Just the other day I was in a coffee shop, working on a manuscript draft when a woman sat at the table next to me. Initially, I took her for a college student. She had wide legged jeans, big, fashionable glasses, and long hippie-straight hair. She also had a variety of bags.

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She got a ceramic mug of coffee and set it directly in front of her. Then, like she’d ben stung by a bee, she jumped and started to rustle around in one of her bags. This caught my eye only because the movement was so sudden and violent. I watched her out of the corner of my eyes.

Finally, she found whatever she was looking for. She stilled and pulled a milk frother from her bag. It wasn’t wrapped in anything, it was just a standard battery operated, hand held, milk frother.

By now I had completely abandoned my edits. The woman stuck the frother in her coffee shop coffee and turned it on. She frothed her hand made coffee. When she was done, she put the frother back in one of the bags.

This was not the kind of coffee shop that didn’t let you “adulterate” your coffee. Meaning, there were no men in canvas aprons with highly producted mustaches telling you that you would drink the coffee as they made it or you would leave, but still, I had never seen such a thing.

I went back to editing. Then, the woman caught my eye again. She was bending over to drink the coffee rather than picking up the mug. At first I thought this was because the mug was too full, but after several long sips, I realized, she was uninterested in picking up the mug. She was just going to giraffe it. And when it got too low, she simply tipped the cup rather than pick it up.

Finally, I really looked at her. I realized, this woman was not in college. Her hair had more grey than brown. She was closer to middle aged than young, and her actions were not those of a kid looking to find her way. This woman had found her way. It was not my way, but it was a way.

While I had never seen someone do what this woman was doing, one thing she did not do was slurp her coffee. She drank quietly. And for this, I found her a very respectful coffee shop mate. On the other side of me, three teenagers argued about religion, their voices so loud, not even my music could drown them out.

I like the quiet weird people. They make my day a little less boring, and I can still get my editing done.

I wonder what else she had in all her bags.

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This past fall, I went elk hunting. While hunting, I realized I could, for the first time in years, take a nap. I was out in the wilderness, no phone, no chores, no deadlines, no work. It was just me and the middle Ides of the day, waiting for the animals to become active again. And I found I could lay down in the dirt, put a bandana over my face and sleep like the dead.

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I have always claimed to not be a napper. I need to either be sick or physically exhausted to simply fall asleep while the sun is up. But, it’s clearly not that simple. When I am at home, there are tons of things I can do at any moment. Even now as I write this, I could be mowing the lawn, reading a book, working on a novel, making food, running errands, looking at my phone, etc.

But when you can’t do those things, your mind lets them go. Strange things happen. Like you fall asleep as an adult in the late morning.

It makes you wonder if this is what our brains were supposed to be doing. I think back to my childhood when we didn’t have any devices. We spent hours just riding bikes around and drawing horrible chalk spirals. We weren’t listening to anything other than whatever was going on around us. We weren’t watching videos on our phones. What exactly were our brains doing without the constant influx of stimulus? What are our brains not doing now that we can always engage them?

I am a compulsive audiobook listener. I love putting on an audiobook while I work in the yard or workout. But, fifteen years ago, no one was listening to audiobooks or podcasts. Sure we had music but for me, as a non-musician, I can zone out to music and let my brain run circles around itself. If I’m doing that with an audiobook, I’m not listening to the story.

In 2026, it’s incredibly easy to avoid sitting with yourself. You can always do something to distract you from the white noise in your brain. I suppose this is what mindfulness and meditation is all about, and as we become increasingly over-scheduled and digitized, such concepts are becoming harder and harder for the average person to access.

But at the same time, I get why we’re always looking to entertain our brains. While on that hunting trip, we walked through a stand of aspens. The aspens had all sorts of carvings on them. These are technically called arborglyphs. Across the West, you can find historically carved aspen trees. Starting in the late 1800’s, sheepherding in Western America became a thing that many immigrant men did. The Basque are the most famous Western American sheepherders. They would (and in some places, still do) go out into the wilderness all summer. It would be a couple of thousand sheep, a few dogs, and some guy. They’d spend all summer by themselves, and in their expansive boredom they would carve on aspen trees.

While on that hunting trip, we walked by a big aspen. In it’s flesh were the following words:

There is nothing so vast and empty as loneliness.

Humans have spent generations trying to get out of their minds. It’s why people do drugs. It’s why people thrill seek. It’s what makes people feel alive.

But I do wonder if the quiet moments are far more important than we realize. Recently I felt rather sleepy around 3:30 in the afternoon. It was a day off, and I decided to lay down, not totally sure why I was suddenly so tired. I laid down, pulled a blanket over me and didn’t look at my phone. I didn’t open a book. I didn’t put on an audiobook or music. I just laid there in the broad daylight under a blanket and then WHAM. I suddenly knew what my next book’s premise was. I wasn’t trying to come up with a premise. In fact, I had decided I wasn’t starting a new project until the Cash and Gravity side of things was wrapped up. Then, when I finally let my brain relax, I had a premise I had been dancing around for ages but had never considered writing a novel about.

And then I fell asleep.

I have, recently, started to deliberately choose not to put on an audiobook or pick up my phone or a book. Not that I’m getting out of the reading game, but I am trying to get back in the game where I let my brain roam without any input. It seems healthy. There is probably some PhD out there yelling this to the rooftops, but I run more on vibes than I do on research. And this feels like the thing I should be doing, just... chilling, at times. Not cramming every efficiency out of every moment.

Brains are crazy. They can do so much, and yet they have such a small Goldilocks Zone. Give them too much freedom and not enough input and you start carving dramatic things into trees. Give them too little freedom too much input and you take AI as gospel.

With all of the technological advancements of the last twenty years (the smart phone and AI most notably) I know I’m not the only person who thinks, maybe drawing all those boredom fueled chalk spirals wasn’t that bad after all.

Maybe I’ll go buy some chalk.

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This summer I got to do a book event with a long time book critic. By this point, a whole two months out from my debut, I had been getting the hang of the types of questions people asked me. Thanks to having done a fair amount of written interviews, I knew a lot of the basic interview questions had similar vibes. But, in this live event, the interviewer said that she’d read my bio and had seen that I’d done a Master of Fine Arts. I told her I had. She then told me, and the packed room, she was shocked. She said that my book didn’t read like an MFA project. She went on to explain that, to her, most MFA writers wrote stories which were incredibly similar and not very good. Conversely, she said my book was really readable and she loved it.

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I had not gotten this question before, but I’m always one to lean into a little chaos. I decided to take it as a massive compliment, and I went on to explain a little about my MFA program. Which is what I want to do here today.

If you are a serious writer, at some point you consider an MFA. This is a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. It’s grad school in creative writing. And, there are a variety of feelings on this topic.

One: People will tell you, it will change your writing.

And as a sub point to that, it won’t necessarily be in a way that you want.

Two: MFAs are expensive, and there are very, very, very good odds (I do not have the stats, but trust me when I say this) that you will never make enough money off your writing to pay off your degree.

These two points were top issues for me. The other problem I had when considering an MFA was that I had a full time job, and there was no way I was quitting it to move across the country to do an in-person MFA for 2.5 years, only to emerge with no job and a massive cash problem ranging from no income to paying off the last two point five years.

But I had always dreamed of going to grad school to focus on writing. It was something I’d wanted to do right out of undergrad but a very practical botany professor (thank you Professor Ellmore) told me to get some life experience before I felt like I had to go back to school. And, for some strange reason, I actually listened to him.

After undergrad, I wrote. I wrote a sci-fi trilogy which was picked up by a small house without an agent. I wrote other manuscripts. I wrote a collection of short stories that I released on Amazon. I queried agent after agent after agent, and got no where.

It wasn’t until the beginning of 2021 that I realized, I was in danger of rage quitting my job. I had recently promoted, moved to a totally bizarre area in the middle of COVID, and I was frustrated and burning out. I couldn’t figure out how to get published, but I decided to really buckle down and work on professionalizing my writing. I needed an out from work. I needed an out from the world. I joined an online writing club. They hosted a guest speaker, and she mentioned she had an MFA. I wrote her an email after, asking about it, and she told me about the program she’d went to.

And this is the part where I fan girl about the MFA program I attended. I attended, get ready for it, the University California Riverside Palm Desert Low Residency Program. A lot of words in there, I know.

UCR Palm Desert is the reason I got anywhere with my writing. And these are the top things that made it so very successful for me.

1.) It was, and still is, is low residency. This means that most of the work was done from my house. In the 2.5 year program, I needed to go into class five times, which broke down to two times a year, for ten days each residency. More on this later, but outside of that, I could do the work from anywhere, at any time. I did not have to be in class at any specific time, which was huge for me since I was working a shift schedule and had very unpredictable hours. I could work while going to this program. And that is what I did. I got two promotions while in the program and managed the workload just fine.

2.) The program focused on not just teaching craft (writing) but it also focused on the industry. My thesis was read by industry professionals. I was exposed to agents, editors, producers, managers, and all sorts of people who worked in and around the writing profession. Until I went to UCR, I had never met an actual published author. I had no mentors in the industry, and it showed. I could not figure out how to get out of the slush pile and in front of someone who would be willing to champion my work.

Getting in a room with industry professionals changed everything. This is how I got an agent. This is how I got screenplay deals. This is how I networked and met the people who would cheer me on. I know there are many MFAs which exist solely to focus the craft of writing. That’s fine, but it wasn’t something I could justify. I wanted to go to a program to professionalize my writing, and for me, my writing was only part of the problem. A bigger issue was that I was a nobody with no writer friends and no way of getting in the door of the industry. I walked out of UCR Palm Desert with countless contacts and writing peers.

3.) Residency. The ten days I had to go into class are referred to as a residency. In a lot of programs, the school hosts the students in un-used dorms. At UCR we went to a spa in the Coachella Valley. It was a magical writing camp. I woke up every morning, walked through palm trees and highly cared for gardens to my favorite breakfast in the world– fresh fruit, bacon, and coffee– and then spent the morning taking classes on everything from how to write a query letter, to the joys of re-writing, to the basics of the podcasting buisness. After lunch, everyone broke into their workshop groups, where my work was critiqued and then I offered criticism on my peers’ work. In the evening I would socialize and attend any variety of special programs from student readings, to special author events, to the showings of my peers’ movies. I had the most fun I’ve had in my entire adult life at these residencies. There was so much potential buzzing in the air. I was meeting the people who would later go on to champion my work, and I was meeting actual writing peers! People I’ve kept in regular contact with for years at this point.

4.) UCR Palm Desert not only taught genre but embraced it. So many MFA programs focus on churning out literary writers, which is fine, but it turns out, I was made to write genre (thrillers, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, romance, mysteries, etc). Genre is traditionally looked down on by the literary world, but frankly, I don’t care. I like reading genre, and I like writing it. Also, it sells, so turns out, the book-buying populace likes it too.

5.) UCR embraces its alumni. I have gone back to UCR to lecture, and when I got my book deal, they threw me a book launch party which was the stuff of writer’s dreams. They sold out of my book. Sold out. At my launch party. I mean, that’s the stuff of dreams.

While I cannot say an MFA is the right move for everyone, nor can I even say that everyone needs an MFA, for me, going to UCR Palm Desert was the best thing I’d ever done for myself. I got to make a life long dream come true. I got exposed to a world I’d wanted into for most of my conscious life. Every day I am grateful for my time in the program.

If you are considering an MFA program, I recommend asking yourself, what your goals are with attending a program? Also, does the program you’re looking at teach what you want to write? Does it fit your lifestyle? While UCR Palm Desert worked for me, it might not be the place for you. But, if you are on the market, consider UCR Palm Desert. Call them. They will answer all of your questions.

#UCRPalmDesert

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Recently I had to drive from California to Las Vegas. Since it was summer, I did not have to drive through Baker and the Mojave Desert, which was a total win. I got to go the scenic way.

This way included going through Dyer, NV, which is where Dolon from Cash and Gravity almost lives. When I realized the route was going to reunite me with the area that I wrote about, I was pretty excited.

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I rolled through Dyer, and the one gas station had an RV that was blocking most of it. I had plenty of gas, so I just kept cruising. I had a ways to drive.

Somewhere along the way, I passed another gas station, but it was closed. This felt a little more ominous. I had plenty of fuel, but I would not make it to Vegas on a single tank.

I realized my next hope for gas was smack in the middle of the desert in beautiful Beatty, NV. You can maybe call Beatty a town. Beatty’s town website proclaims it the “Gateway to Death Valley National Park” and then it asks how you heard of Beatty. Beatty has a four way intersection, a guy sometimes selling dented ammo cans for too much money, a bunch of ghost town structures, a Denny’s, an actual high school, a couple of casinos, a place selling “fresh” jerky (what does that even mean?) and of course Eddie World Gasoline.

Eddie World Gasoline is not Eddy’s World. It is Eddie World. On the shade structure of the gas pumps is an oval image of a boy’s face. It’s in black and white and has an old timey vibe.

While writing this, I looked up why it was called Eddie World. I thought the lack of a possessive in that name was weird, and I also have always found the cameo-eque photo/drawing of the bygone kid a bit creepy, like he died of consumption in one of the mining shacks.

While I looked into this, Wikipedia informed me that the Eddie World men’s urinals have some sort of game attached to them. You apparently play it by peeing into the urinal. I immediately texted one of my male friends who has gone through Beatty a lot, demanding to know if this was true. He did not respond on my timeline (immediately... I’m working on developing patience) so I ran upstairs where my husband was taking a shower. (I’m not developing it right now).

“HEY,” I said.

He took a second before responding. He had spent the entire day trying to change out the struts and control arms on my car only to realize, too late, they’d sent him a bad control arm, and some bolt got stripped, and the only way to fix it was to order another, and now we had a car down for a week while we waited for the parts. It was close to 100 degrees out, and my husband was covered in grease and looked like a coal miner.

“Yes?” he finally said.

“Is it true that in the urinals in Eddie World in Beatty you get to play a game by peeing?”

This was clearly not the question he thought I was going to ask.

“You mean the bathrooms in the back after you walk by all the candy?” he finally said.

“Yes.”

“I was in there probably six years ago and there was no game in the urinals,” he said.

This was not the real-time info I craved, but it was what I was going to get in that moment. I still don’t know if the Eddie World urinals have a game associated with them. If you know, I want to know.

But back to the car ride. I needed to get to Eddie World to get gas. About an hour out from Beatty, the Amargosa Range mountains came into view, and I knew I was on the Eastern Edge of Death Valley National Park. This section of highway 95 drank up my gas like I had plenty to spare. It was flat, straight, and in one of the hottest places in the country.

I turned off my AC.

After forty minutes of sweating, I rolled past the 25 mph sign that let me know, I was entering Beatty, and my out-of-state plates were ripe for a speeding ticket. I crawled at 25 mph to the edge of town. Palm trees appeared and then, there it was, Eddie World. AND, the pumps had gas and people were refueling. I’d made it!

After getting gas, I went to the building. A cacophony of calls filled the air, and I realized the palm trees were attracting birds from all over. It was a literal oasis, and the birds were digging it.

While I only learned of the possible game in the men’s bathroom upon writing this, the thing that I’ve always known about Eddie World is that, inside they have bulk candy, shelves of it. And, as my friend reminded me before my drive, you could, if you could find them, buy bags of just banana runts.

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who love banana runts, and those who will vote against them, no matter the issue.

I went to the bathroom (as of this writing, the women’s toilets do not have a game attached to them) and wandered down one of the rows of candy.

There, on one of the shelevs, were stacks of bulk banana runts.

I didn’t touch the foul things, but I did document that they were still there, just waiting for a good home.

I left, banana runtless, but with 15 gallons of gas, and headed through what remained of Beatty. I did not see the man selling ammo cans, but I saw some of his wears. At the four-way junction, I had to back up and then drive around a semi trying to take a right into town. And then I was in the wilds between Beatty and Vegas.

I made it to Vegas just fine.

The desert is a weird place. And the people who make their homes in the desert are rarely boring. There is a world where selling gas and bulk banana runts is a legitimate buisness plan. That world is Eddie World, and really, it could only exist in the desert.

If you ever find yourself in a desert thinking it’s a bunch of nothing, you’re not looking close enough.

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In my late teens, I was in Boston. Public transit with actual, real-life trains, was new to me. I loved riding the T. And one day, while looking at the Blue line map, I saw the final stop was a place called Wonderland.

Obviously, this was the kind of place I had to at least see. So I rode the Blue line all the way to the end. It was late fall, and only an idiot couldn’t feel the incoming winter. The clouds hung low, the wind cut through my hoodie. Once I got of the train, my friend and I were the only people in the world.

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For this post, I could have read what’s actually at Wonderland, but I’m just going to tell you what I remember. I knew Wonderland was close to where the horse tracks and greyhound track were. Later, I did go to the greyhound track. I remember the mechanical rabbit they made the dogs run after was so old, it threw sparks. Watching that sparky rabbit, I realized, greyhound racing was probably not very nice. But the day I went to Wonderland, my friend and I got off the train. We were the only people on the platform. We made our way to the ocean.

The area had a bygone vacation destination vibe, and it wasn’t just because the season had turned. I walked along the frigid coast, the grey water snapping at the coarse sand, and I could see what were obviously once-grand hotels perched just above the water. But even in the slanty light it was clear, their paint peeled. The ornate decorations on the exteriors were crumbling. Everything seemed bleached out and shabby. The wind seemed to be returning every structure we saw back into dust.

Still, having come from a landlocked state, I found the absolutely freezing water interesting. It was the ocean after all! Who couldn’t be fascinated?

I decided I needed to touch the water. I took off my shoes and rolled up my pants and waded in. Even in only calf deep water, I could feel the rip tide.

I walked in the Atlantic, careful not to lose my footing and get swept out to my death. I considered the hotel up on the cliffs. Was it a casino? It felt like a run down casino, but I didn’t know enough about Massachusetts gambling laws to know if it was casino.

I scanned the entire beach. No one, other than my friend and I, were out. We were totally alone.

Something bumped my leg. I looked down and saw the first horseshoe crab I had ever seen! I had read about them. And here one was! How exciting.

Except it was floating upside down and was obviously dead.

I jerked away from the dead horseshoe crab, entirely sad that it was dead, and when I moved, the water jostled the crab. Something floated out from under the shell.

It was a wadded up piece of paper. No, a bill. It was a wadded up dollar bill.

I reached out and extracted it from the dead sea creature’s orbit. I’d never actually seen a bill completely wadded up like that. I mean, you hear about it in books, a crumpled dollar bill but to see one, it’s weird. Who just smashes a bill into a ball like they’re going to three-point it into a trash bin? It’s the least efficient way to carry paper money, all smashed up and chaotic.

I un-wadded the bill.

It was a $100.

The wind threw a cold spray of water over me, but that wasn’t why I went cold. I looked up at the crumbling maybe-casino, down at the dead horseshoe crab, and then at the sea-stained $100 bill in my hands, and I was convinced that something illicit had happened to land this bill, in this condition, floating in the water at the end of the Blue line.

I thought about dropping it, but after a long, cold second, I clamped it harder in my hand and waded back to the shore.

At the time, I only needed $100 to open a saving’s account. So I took the money and opened a bank account with it, which makes me realize, I was a really boring teenager.

I don’t know whose $100 that was, but they weren’t out there that day. Or if they were, they were underwater and didn’t it anyway.

Wonderland just had that kind of vibe.

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A while back, several friends came to visit me. I was in California at the time, and when they rolled in, one of the things they wanted to do was eat an It’s-It. For those of you who don’t know what an It’s-It is, it’s a San Francisco Tradition! And for those of you who don’t know what that means, it’s two oatmeal cookies with ice cream between them, all of it dipped in chocolate.

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The things are beefy. A lot of ice cream, a lot of cookie, and not always in proportions I prefer. I had never had one prior to living in California, and when I was in California, we used to eat them after particularly heinous work days. I hadn’t thought of them in years until my friend decided they wanted one.

But, as I said, I was never fully onboard with an It’s-It unless I had been doing something pretty awful. And the day they were in town, we did a pleasant uphill hike, but I wasn’t worked enough to need an It’s-It. Despite this, my friend bought an It’s-It for another friend, a cappuccino flavor, which I had never had before. My other friend felt pretty similar about It’s-Its as I did–a lot of cookie and ice cream, and it was all a little too much.

He left the cappuccino It’s-It in my freezer.

A few weeks later, my husband opened the freezer and saw the abandoned It’s-It. He thought about eating it but decided against it.

Then a few weeks later, I woke up one morning and decided I was going to run a trail system that connected to the location I was staying. I didn’t know how long the trail system was, but I wanted to see if I could run the whole loop.

It turned out, with only a minor mix up at one point, the loop was 24.5 miles. And I could run it. And I did. And when I got back to my house, I was in serious need of calories.

I lay on the couch, knowing I was going to seriously pay if I didn’t eat something, but I was so wrung out. How on Earth was I supposed to get food? Then I remembered, the It’s-It!

I scraped myself off the couch and pulled open the freezer. There, on the bottom shelf, shining like a beacon of hope and light, was the cappuccino It’s-It. Carbs, fat, calories, and caffeine, everything a long distance runner in serious need of food could need.

It was the absolute best thing I’ve ever eaten. I housed that It’s-It and then was able to think again. A barbecue was happening in my neighborhood, and powered by the It’s-It, I shuffled to the barbecue and got myself a bratwurst. Then I got a hamburger, which I realized was actually a veggie burger, so I put an actual beef patty on top of the veggie patty. Someone looked at me.

“Are you a vegetarian?” they asked.

“No,” I said, taking a bite. “I’m just hungry.”

But thanks to that It’s-It, I wasn’t collapsed on the couch, my body eating itself because I was too hungry to get up and eat something. I was scarfing down free food and mixing vegetarian and meat options like a heathen.

That It’s-It saved me. Thank you to everyone who failed to eat it. You all are the heroes of the hour.

And, thank you to the cappuccino It’s-It, in all of your too much ice cream, too much cookie glory. You are the perfect post-long run snack. May you always be found, abandoned in a a freezer, by the bedraggled adventurer in their last moments before critical calorie collapse.

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It has been two months since Cash and Gravity published. It’s been a dream come true. And, as I’ve said before, a huge reason why it’s been such a dream has been the massive outpouring of support I’ve gotten from friends, acquaintances, and even strangers!

To everyone who has bought the book, thank you. If you bought it and read it and liked it, all reviews help. Reviews do things with the algorithms which I cannot explain, but they ultimately make my work more visible. Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble are the heavy hitters. If you have the time to write even just a sentence, that sentence could push the book up in visibility and translate to more people picking it up and reading it.

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My goal is to keep writing and selling, i.e. publishing, books. But publishing houses will only sign me for more books if it is worth it to them, which means they need to see my book sell, and no sale is too small.

Recently, one of my friends called me out of the blue. I hadn’t talked to him in months. He called me on his lunch break to tell me he went into the independent bookstore in my town and told them to order my book. And they did! Another friend went into her local Barnes and Nobel and told them about my book. They ordered three on the spot. And when I visited her, we went into see Cash and Gravity on the shelves, but they had all sold. We told the sales associate and she ordered three more copies of Cash and Gravity. These sound like small numbers, but independent publishing runs on a shoestring budget. These small acts of kindness by my friends have resulted in one more sale, which means I am one book closer to getting another publishing contract. Another friend, who for years swore off social media, sent me a series of screenshots of his facebook messenger conversations with his local book store requesting they stock Cash and Gravity. I could not believe it.

So thank you to everyone who has helped me along. If you are not tired from supporting me, please pepper the internet with reviews.

Also, I get this question all the time. Yes, there is an awesome audiobook version of Cash and Gravity. I didn’t narrate it, they gave me the option of two narrators, and it turned out really well.

Thank you to the moon and back, which totally isn’t foreshadowing for book two.

Or is it?

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About a decade ago, I moved into a house in a close-knit neighborhood. I was young and did not have a lot of responsibilities. The family in the house next to me was expecting their second child. The woman had also just taken a new, stressful job, and her family had a cat who was a bit of a curmudgeon.

Somehow, I don’t really remember the details, we worked out that I would take care of the cat for the summer. This cat moved into my house, in which I had several roommates, and proceeded to be a grumpy cat who I did find delightful, even if she would give you a quick swipe if you weren’t performing to her standards.

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Then, just the other day, nearly thirteen years later, I ended up at a barbecue in that same neighborhood. I had lived in multiple places since that summer, and I’d lost track of that cat’s owners.

And in an unexpected twist of fate, those same long-lost neighbors were there, even though they too had moved out of town nearly a decade prior.

We reconnected, and in the process of getting each other up to date on the last decade plus of our lives, the woman told me I had come up in conversation just the other day.

She worked part time as a consultant, and was on a zoom call with a woman who she vaguely recognized.

“And I told her,” my long-ago-neighbor said, “that she looked familiar. And she told me that back in the day she was your roommate and she helped take care of my cat!”

Then the woman went on to tell me how much that had meant to her, that I had agreed to help her with the cat at such a pivotal time in her life. She said it still really meant a lot to her.

Meanwhile, I was trying to remember this summer, and the deal I’d struck to basically catnap someone’s else cat for a summer. This did sound like a thing I would do, but I didn’t immediately remember it.

Then I did! I had taken care of that cat, and even though she was a little mean, I really liked her. I mean, I like pretty much all cats, so that’s not saying much. What really struck me though was that this happened over a decade ago and while my grey matter had nearly forgotten the pathways to that memory, this woman still remembered it as a true act of kindness.

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People are always chasing that feeling of being truly alive. We want that dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. All those chemicals our brains release to tell us, You love this. Keep doing this. You are alive. It’s a survival mechanism. Find a patch of blueberries, your brain sends you the dopamine and you know, you are on the right track.

And we also know, that in the modern world, this chemical reward system hardwired into all our brains can be highjacked. It’s why people develop addictions, and I use that word widely. When I was a kid, I learned that addiction meant DRUGS. In 2026, I’d argue our understanding of addiction has expanded. You are most certainly addicted to something. Be it your phone, food, crafting, working out, whatever, we are all capable of manipulating our lizard brain to give us the happy chemicals with some twenty-first century vice.

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But, every now and then, you encounter something that floods your brain with those happy chemicals, something outside of some hardwired survival instinct or addiction masquerading as such.

For me, the quiet moments of travel do it. I like to travel. I like to see people and things, but I also struggle with the inertia of getting out of my house that has my blankets and cats. Once I get going though, I love traveling. I love doing the thing, whatever that thing might be, but I also love the journey to get to the thing.

There is a gas station on a beautiful highway, rural highway. The gas station is known simply as the Mobile. Its got food, concerts, stunning mountain and lake views, and a cool lawn. Years ago, this was a common meeting space for packed summer weekends. I would get off work, throw a random assortment of stuff into my car, and drive hours to meet someone at the Mobile. We would eat over-priced tacos, look out at lake, and know, for the next three days, the would was our oyster. We would explore our public lands, drink coffee, and read. The potential was endless. The world was ours. We became limitless.

And that limitless feeling, I feel it most strongly in the quiet, liminal spaces en route to whatever my next adventure is. I feel it on summer nights when driving somewhere new late after work. I feel it when I stop for gas by after having broken free of my normal routine. I feel it most in those transitional moments when I know, I am using my precious life as loudly as I can.

It’s easy to think that the clear cut things are what give us joy. Summiting that mountain, successfully harvesting an elk, buying the plane tickets, etc. And those things do make us happy. But there are so many subtle, sneaky things that we don’t always consider. Coming home after a long work week, knowing tomorrow will be different. Feeling spring on the air after a long winter. That moment when you hug a long lost friend and you feel like no time has passed and that a lifetime has.

It’s always the most unassuming moments that hit the hardest. Maybe it’s because we don’t see them coming. Maybe it’s the power of stillness. Maybe it’s both.

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I have always struggled to sleep. Throughout the years I’ve tried various things to sleep, but one thing that has always helped is background noise.

I now have an app that plays various sounds. I can’t do any sudden irregular sound. My brain keys into it and becomes hyper focused. So all the sleep tracks with frogs croaking or birds chirping are out. But water noises, that’s where it’s at.

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When I lived in the desert I used to dream of swimming, and listening to recordings of storms helped lull me into sleep. Now, every night I chose between sound tracks of gentle rain, drizzle on a cabin roof, rain on a canvas tent, sounds of oceans and lakes, and distant thunder storms to fall asleep to.

I pretty much only listen to the sound of water to sleep.

My husband though, he can fall asleep instantly. So, I when put on a water sound to slowly relax into sleep with, he’s already out.

But, every now and then, he will wake up in the middle of the night. I’ll be sleeping, and he’ll come to hearing water. And since my husband re-plumbed our entire house, this apparently is not a pleasant way to suddenly wake up.

“You know, your sleep app is basically a catalogue of plumbing emergencies,” he told me one morning. “It’s terrifying.”

And I had never thought about that. I’m so focused on sleeping, I don’t care what happens once I get there. But when my battle is done, someone else’s begins. The relaxing pitter patter of rain is the sound of another person’s gut wrenching anxiety.

Who knew?

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