A new dress shop has opened down by our local pizza place, and yesterday I noticed a giant ball of carefully manicured fur hanging out by the entrance while stopping in to pick up dinner. I found myself wondering why a dress shop needs a dog, and the answers I came up with will probably be the seed of a new story down the line.

The photo really doesn’t do justice to the epic, real-life fuzziness, but it’s hard to get a good shot when you’re hungry and the pepperoni is calling you.

We’re in week five or six of caring for sick pets here at Camp Brain Jar, transferring our attention from the first sick guinea pig to the second, who is having things much worse than his younger brother.

The stress is starting to take its toll–I spent a good chunk of my day having the self-care-isn’t-easy-and-it-isn’t-just-indulgence talk with myself, trying to shake off the increasingly-negative headspace that’s settling in. Doing my best to ward off the temptation to do things that are mildly fulfilling and easy, rather than legitimately-good-work and requiring effort.

I’d be tempted to drop a quote from Stephen Pressfield’s The War of Art about shadow careers and real work here, but I fear the book is in storage and its got that weird mix of 50% helpful advice about mindset, 50% bug-fuck crazy magical thinking about art curing cancer that makes me ish-ish about recommending it.

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