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How we’re faring: we’re hot. Way hot. Pretty m’f’ing hot. Normally my cats seem oblivious to the heat, and they’ll hang out in the bedroom even though only my front room gets air conditioned. Not so these past two days. They’re pretty much staying where I am, which is the coolest spot in the house.

I can’t tell if the birds are drinking the water I put out, but I just went to the roof and dumped what was there, put in fresh water, and moved it to a different spot (it was no longer in the shade).

I love the sneaker pile in this picture. The blue sneakers are new, the red ones old. (I would love to get some new red ones, though.)

I put a pan of water on the roof for the birds. Okay, yes, it’s a litterbox. But I swear it was only used a couple of times, by the fabulous guest cat Rusty. It’s clean. I promise. I put bird seed around it so the birds would learn that it was there, but hours later the seed and the water is untouched. And I know they saw me, the minute I showed up on the roof a few came fluttering over, so it’s weird.

You can also see how much my building slants. It’s not just the roof. My apartment is like that!

I’m reading this book, “Choral Masterworks: A Listener’s Guide,” by Michael Steinberg. In the first essay in his book he has this wonderful poem by William Bronk. It’s called The Conclusion.

I thought
we stood at the door
of another world
and it might open and we go in.
Well,
there is that door
and such a world.

Isn’t that a great poem?? I loved it. Thank you, Michael Steinberg!

Okay, back to work now.

This is a picture of a blue house against a blue sky, taken … somewhere in the city. I really should note where I am when I take pictures.

It’s a billion degrees out and I’m hiding out inside for the most part. I just checked. 102. As if 102 isn’t bad enough as it is, it feels like much more. I should put out some water on the roof for the birds. I think I will.

Morning world! It was a nice day off yesterday. I hope it was for all of you, too. But now it’s back to the salt mines.

Nine Hours Later: I’m back! I forgot to hit “publish.” From my roof last night—a picture of the people watching from a roof next to us.

On my blog for my book Unbelievable, I have a link to Michael Prescott’s blog, which has the tagline, Occasional thoughts on matters of life and death. It’s where I’ve found some of most intelligent and articulate writing on these subjects.

He also writes thrillers, and has a new one out called Riptide. From his bio:

“I was born in 1960 and grew up in New Jersey. My childhood hero was stop-motion animation master Ray Harryhausen, and my early ambition was to create special-effects monsters like the ones in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts.”

“I attended Wesleyan University, majoring in Film Studies, then moved to Los Angeles, where I wrote scripts for several independent producers. Only one of these films was produced. I also worked as a magazine freelancer, archival researcher, and editor, and eventually started writing books. I wrote a few horror novels (best forgotten) under a long-defunct name, then authored six titles under the pseudonym Brian Harper before switching to my new identity as Michael Prescott.”

He went to Wesleyan! Some of the best people I know went to Wesleyan (my ex-husband for one, Aly Sujo, and Joss Whedon). So you might want to try Riptide