I nearly burned the house down today.

Oh, perhaps I slightly exaggerate.  I lost a table cloth and a glass dish but I made some headway towards enlightenment.  I now know that Reynold’s Foil Pop-ups do not contain metal; that the kitchen smoke alarm needs a new battery; that the dog won’t bark at fire; and that the ghost in my house will frantically flit around the living room to warn me of danger.

This staggeringly stupid episode followed four hours of binge-watching Season 15 of Project Runway while doing laundry.  I think my brain must have gone soft in the process.

But I’m awake now.  I’ve had a good laugh.  After clearing the mess, I crab-walked downstairs to the laundry room with two week’s worth of towels and sheets.  Then I emptied the first-floor washer unit and hung wet tights in the main bathroom.

I supped on leftovers and kombucha while scrolling through social media.   The dog has been out and now sits on the floor of the kitchen, staying a safe distance from anywhere I go.   She eyes me now and then just to be sure she knows what I’m doing.  Behind me, in the old cabinet that I salvaged from the neighbor’s trash pile, the Google Fiber box sends out reassuring rhythmic thumps to remind me that the rest of the world lies just a few optic blips away.

It’s the end of the twentieth day of the thirty-fifth month of this daring voyage through uncharted waters spanning the distance between what has been and what could be.  Flotsam surrounds me.  I dodge falling embers as I lift the oar and plunge it deep into the water, pushing myself forward.   Life continues.