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Observations from January:

1. My dog now has one eye and some truly painful-looking stitches. The veterinarian says that she will probably eventually lose vision in both eyes. She is groggy and in pain and keeps bumping into things. I want to bubble-wrap her, as I imagine (somehow) that this will preserve her from any further harm.
   
   
2. Bubble wrap is just a damn good thing in general. The past few weeks I've felt as though I could use a few layers of it myself. I used to have a therapist; hell, I used to have two. But honestly, maintaining them is almost as stressful as not having them, what with the finding them and paying them and keeping them and having to see them all the time. Not to mention the actual talking to them. Fuck it. Bubble wrap all the way.
   
   
3. My brother writes from Samoa: "The new meds I am on are either working or the placebo effect is very good." My brother is a very funny young man - and he is a young man, these days. He no longer writes like an exile. His last letter sounded like the letter of a (yes, lonely, yes, sad) person who lives elsewhere but is writing to tell you what is going on in their lives. This is a huge improvement over the two-sentence "I-hate-it-here-bring-me-home" emails we've been getting until now. Still, he's been gone almost a year now. I miss him so much it hurts. So do my parents. I think we all believe it's for the best, but goddamnit, I want my brother back.
   
   
4. Maybe if I wrote to Christos I could convince him to go out and bubble-wrap Samoa. God knows he's wrapped every other damn thing I can think of, from the Eiffel Tower to the Grand Canyon. Samoa would be a cinch.