A Very Big Win for Cat

So earlier in the month, I felt a little bit inspired on a random Sunday morning and popped off a new Medium article after weeks of just focusing on my freelancing for a while. It was an advice article aimed at younger people in their 20's, filled with all the things I wish at 44 that I'd understood at their age. It did pretty well initially -- enough to make me happy. It got curated, as well as picked up for publication by The Post-Grad Survival Guide -- very cool things that I was proud of and grateful for, but nothing that hasn't happened to a bunch of my other articles so far.

Then a couple of days ago, the damn thing started going bananas and blowing up all of a sudden. At this point, it's accumulated tens of thousands of views, reads, and claps. It's even eclipsed the initial success of that first article I published over there -- the big "beginner's luck" win I've been trying to duplicate for the past six months -- so I'm super excited. This means a very badly needed chunk of money in my account next month, as well as plenty of exposure for my work that I probably need even more. (I am trying to make fetch happen, after all.)

I think the most gratifying part of this may be the feedback I've gotten from other people. Sure, there are always a couple of trolls who feel the need to swoop in and criticize what you wrote or just be salty in general because they're big mad they're not in your shoes. The great majority of these folks who reached out to me were kind, supportive, and sweet as far as the things they wrote though. People tweeted me, they emailed me, they added me all across all my social media platforms, and they thanked me for what I wrote because it resonated with them. That sort of thing is very humbling and validating for someone like me, as all I've ever wanted in life was to be heard. 

Blood Carrots

Last night, I dreamed I was a carrot. I was planted in a field with a lot of other carrots and tended by farmers that apparently took farming super seriously. To make sure all the carrots grew nice and big, they kept taking animals and even people out to the fields and slaughtering them on the spot so they could fertilize the fields with all the blood. It also rained almost constantly wherever this was.

In the dream, I kept soaking up all the blood and all the rain through the outside of my carrot body and it was weirdly satisfying. Like eating a huge plate of exactly what you've been craving when you're so hungry you think you're going to faint. Also, I never got too warm because my whole body was made of vegetable, safe underneath the surface of the earth. And my carrot top really liked blowing in the breeze. I knew I'd get harvested and eaten one day, but for some reason I was really excited about it.

Twenty-Five Apples

Every once in a while, my mind will sink its teeth into something kind of silly and refuse to let go of it. It's both frustrating and cool at the same time. Last night it was this lyric from one of the songs on Kate Pierson's solo album. I can't recall what track it is off the top of my head, but the lyric talks about being "split like an apple thrown against the wall".

Now... if an apple is thrown against a wall so hard that it splits, that's a pretty sad state of affairs for the apple. It's now a sad puddle of goo. It will never nourish anyone. It will never become pie or apple cider. It will never grow into a tree. Except the chord structure and melody pattern attached to that particular lyric is actually really bright and transcendent -- not sad at all. It makes it sound like the apple was somehow stronger than the wall even though it split from the impact.

So while I was falling asleep last night, my mind got its fangs into that little thing from that one song I'd listened to earlier in the day. And I kept dreaming about this apple and all the possible things that might have happened to it when it hit the wall. In one scenario, a bird of paradise made out of purple light came out of the apple and flew away. In another, the apple made the wall and the building attached to it crumble into dust because it refused to split at all. There must have been twenty-five different dreams and twenty-five different amazing things that happened to the apple.

Happy Birthday, Robin Williams

Last night, I dreamed that I met Robin Williams in the afterlife. He was hosting a party at his house in heaven. It had really huge glass windows, retro 60's furniture, and a fully stocked bar area. People were drinking martinis and lounging around on bean bag chairs. The walls were covered in dark green velvet and each guest was wearing blue, purple, or green. Some people were also wearing Mardi Gras beads. I had on a purple dress with green feather trim. I also had a fan made of peacock feathers.

Robin Williams was wearing this peacock blue suit and a striped tie. He was going around to everyone that was there, saying hello and welcoming them to his home. When he got to me, he told me I had the most radiant hair he'd ever seen and said: "It gets better, you know. Don't worry. You won't have to bring it either." He knew I was going to ask him how he was feeling -- particularly whether he'd been required to carry his depression to heaven.