This is Frippy.

For seven years, whenever I left Saint Louis, I always felt relieved upon my return. The first familiar signs lining the highway, the bridge west across the Mississippi, the shadow of the Arch in my plane window, these were cues to exhale, content that the city had not burned to the ground in my absence, that its boundaries and its holdings had patiently waited for me to retake my position as a citizen. I have abused the verb phrase kissed the ground to describe how I feel about returning to Saint Louis. Even after seeing Chicago, I was oddly comforted by the smallness and relative silence of the tiny Metro cars, the walk from the station back to my house, the silhouette of the needy cat in the window, waiting to chew me out.

Today, I returned to Saint Louis and the feeling did not greet me.

I had returned from sitting outside a locked-up bus station, its benches and Pepsi machine kept safe from rogue Sabbath-day travelers. I had his head in my lap and my fingers in his hair, occasionally craning my neck to softly kiss him. The bus taking me back to Saint Louis was forty-five minutes late, but I was not relieved to see it finally round the corner into the lot.

My relationship with Saint Louis outlasted even my relationship with Josh. For years, I had turned down his occasional suggestions that we move to Kansas City, until I found myself shrugging and saying, “If you want to, you can move there without me.” And I meant it. Josh could leave me behind if he wanted, but would I leave Saint Louis? I would not.

But now, it’s going to happen. Between man and city, there is no contest. Not only would I leave, but I will.

One thing I’ll never understand.

Serving meat at events designed to benefit animal shelters.

Dead dogs and cats = sad, yes.

But dead cows, dead pigs, or dead chickens to save dogs and cats? Why?

This is not to say I’m better than anyone, that I am more ethical. It’s just how I think. I don’t get it. There’s a disconnect here for me. I would love to help dogs and cats, but not through a donation given in exchange for a plate of meat or a pair of leather boots. Doesn’t that seem off to other people?

If a charity sold fur to help shelter pets, there’d be nothing but outrage. But cook up some beef and it’s business as usual.

You don’t win donations with salad, I guess.

I no longer sleep at House of the Future. Our lease is up at the end of the month and given the changes in our personal and financial situations (among them, Jenn being six months pregnant), we elected not to renew the lease, much to the dismay of V. the Russian Landlord.

For eleven months, I slept in an old closet at House of the Future, surrounded by garlands of plastic ivy, fake pearls, and permanent icicles, gauzy curtains, and red and clear Christmas lights. The fairy bordello, Daniel called it the first time he slept there, nailing my aesthetic intentions.

Now I sleep on the other side of the city in Maison Temporaire. This old neighborhood has many houses for sale, with brightly painted doors and lilies in the front yard, but only one has a Frippy watering its lawn and protecting its copper wiring. It’s only a two-bedroom house, but me and my meager possessions fit inside it like a marble in a shoebox. I rattle through this house, loose, disoriented when I climb the spiraling stairway to the second floor. But I can’t get too comfortable, anyhow.

Perhaps this is why I can’t sleep. I’ve tried lowering the temperature at night, program the thermostat to drop a few degrees after midnight, keep a fan in the open window. Maybe the sounds of cars on the freeway keep me up — it sounds like an awful lot of traffic for 3 am. Who are these people? Where are they going? Don’t they need to sleep, too? I try relaxation techniques, slowly tensing and releasing my muscles, counting my breaths. I check the clock on my phone. 3:58 AM.

And then I put on his music and I can do it, I can sleep.

I’ve dated musicians before. None of them were terrible, but this is a first, where it’s the sounds I like independent of the source. Even if I didn’t know him, I would reach for it to sleep to, stacked among a few sleeping-hour cds, a crackly Autechre album, Mira Calix’s gentle discord, the Lynch soundtracks of Beach House, music that can be turned down low and still be effective in creating a safe space in which I can rest. His sounds float over the white noise of the window fan, of wet tires on the interstate, complemented by the electric buzz of the occasional cicada.

Okay, I can’t be entirely impartial. When I’m finally at ease, breathing deeply, gently transitioning into a dream, there’s his voice, the same voice that calls me bunny when I nod off in his embrace.

Perhaps this is why I can sleep, because I’m reminded of a space where I can get as comfortable as I’d like.

…

(The image, by the way, is a painting I made Daniel for his birthday. I tried to see what happened if I put together bunnies and my abstract work and was very pleased. I’ve never done a lop-eared nubby bunny before, but in this case, I couldn’t imagine painting anything else. Jenn saw it and said she thought it was my best work to date. I told her that if I just fall in love with everyone who commissions a piece from me, I’d produce an awesome body of work.)

Too much is going on. I will never catch up. Not today.

My new boyfriend, Daniel, inspires run-on sentences. (”He’s funny and he’s cute and he’s kind to me and he loves my cookies and and and and…” or “We went to Gokul and to the sculpture park and to the international grocery store and we made our own bubble tea and we cuddled and and…”) I cannot write anything well about him, yet.

On an unrelated note, some of you might not know that I have an etsy shop.