I need to pause. To stop thinking about how many bottles of wine we need for the launch party and the fact that I haven’t posted to my blog in a week and I still haven’t bought my plane ticket to Winnipeg and and and 

… consider that I am finally here. On the verge of my first book being published. 

And also here right now on the couch in my living room at some ungodly hour. The animals are very loyal. When I wake up in the middle of the night and come into the living room to write and read until I can fall back asleep again, they accompany me, all four of us silently creeping out of the bedroom where Oliver is sleep-muttering in wonderment at a very private dream-thing.  

Kismet the kitten, finding her lapspot taken by the laptop, curls herself along my leg. Milo is a sprawl of white fluffy dogginess against the side of the couch. Arigato in his feline wisdom poses thoughtfully by the heater. They sleep.  

So there are the small immediate things: the two cats and the dog and Oliver, all comforting to me in their solid sleeps.

There is me awake and typing this.  

And there is my book coming out in a few days.  

Plus, the world.