Excerpts from an e-mail I sent to answer a friend's questions: I love being a bartender. I would own every bar in sight if I could. I mean, I really love it.

I have become something of a dog freak.

We got a chocolate lab and I felt bad leaving her alone. We went and adopted Bandit so they were companions. I later adopted a friend's pug. I now have a snorting little eight-year-old beast running around and occasionally peeing somewhere in secret, but he is funny.

Actually, he often runs far across a field behind my house, sniffs, does a couple circles, and leaves something there for the future archaeologists to sift through.

I adopted Lily after she ran up to me on the street one day. She darted out of the woods and jumped on me and then rolled on her back so I could pet her. It was all at once like she was desperate for something. She was covered in ticks the size of jelly beans. She was half the weight she should have been -- all ribs.

He wrote that his ex had threatened to put his dog to sleep. Oh, the places I would like to jab that needle…

I wrote: She threatened to put him to sleep? Holy crap. That's awful. Keep the dog. Dogs are better than people.

My friend apologized for things that only he imagined were offenses. No way. He was always a good guy and I never saw anything wrong, so I wrote back: Stop being sorry! That's my syndrome and I have it locked. If you go around apologizing all the time you're gonna have to pay me. Thanks!

Oh yeah, I live in Newtown near the Stevenson Dam, which is actually Monroe/Oxford. So I guess I live in Newroeford. A tattoo place opened up within walking distance. Hmmmm.

There! I have friends. I do not call my friends or gab away or make lunch dates or visit them at house parties meet for coffee send cards or anything at all, but if I liked you once and nothing happened to change that, then nothing has changed. You were my friend, which means you are my friend.

Do I need friends? No. Do I need to talk to and lean on and seek advice from my friends? Yes. Can I put this scenario on the tracks and get it moving? Nope. Stubborn? Like cement. Stupid? Cement. Any chance I'll change my mind?

I may need friends, but not for chatting and gabbing.

To me words are much more persistent. They are part of every memory. Where was I? Who was with me? What did we do? What did we say?

Words are as much a part of the scene as the people gathered at the table for Christmas when I popped up from behind my grandmother's recliner -- my bangs clenched in my fist after I cut them free with her sewing scissors. I thought no one would notice. I was much too young to realize the significance, color, and deeper meaning my family's words would give this memory. Now, I see faces, the doorway and step up from the living room to the dining room table. I wish I knew what they said.

Now, I pay attention to little conversations like they are instructions -- to remember to value to understand to convey to keep. Sometimes I don't quite hear or understand something Jerry says. I ask him what he just said and he will say, hey, could you hold the steering wheel? I am going to jump out now.

I guess he has spent too many years sitting next to Miss WhatDidYaSay?

He stood ankle-deep in the lake water at Eichler's Cove last night, the third or fourth day of insane heat. Jerry watched as I my head poked through the water's surface and I swished my arms to stay afloat. I watched as the water rippled and my thoughts skipped over the crests.

Laughing at myself, I asked Jerry, do you think I had, like, a nervous breakdown? Peeking around the doorway, I saw him pull the neck of his shirt over his head and sit on the couch hiding.

Jerry! Really!

Kendra, I think you've had … 30 since I met you, he said.

How many?

Well, I had to pick a number, he said.

Words.

I think of Ed again. How many times had I gone to the VA with him? Why didn't I make just one more trip?