God! What do I do with this, she asks. She is at the bar, exasperated. Apparently her ride is drunk, and now she's stranded.

Reach out and grip his neck. Squeeze a little, I tell her.

Other people push in: I want four electric currents!

Four?

Four.

From another direction I hear, Kendra?

I'll be right there, I say.

From behind me: Kendra!

Just a sec.

Kendra!

Give me a second…

No kidding. Thursdays are this fast, demanding, and shotgun-fired at the bar.

Saturated and thick, they have liquor stamina! They are huge!

Kendra! Four more currents!

Who is driving, I ask.

Pointing, I see who they mean.

OK, four it is, I say.

I can handle this environment.

Noise and people normally bother me and during the day I slink toward quiet corners, but I thrive in the live music's slamming noise, the mess, and drunkenness at the bar.

I think it's because I am the stable piece in this environment, which soothes me. For once I can reach out and hang on to something sturdy when the turbulence is bad, and it's me. Screw everyone else. I can rely on myself. That's all I really want.

Tomorrow will be exactly two months away from the day I picked up muddy, shitty, scrawny Lily from around the corner. I still have work to do to keep her, Bandit, Hershey, and Ozzy happy and warm.

A friend asked me: What would you carve on a pumpkin?

Constellations. Patterns in the stars that appeared as scorpions, crabs, rams, bears, and warriors detailed in sparkling fireflies of light on a coal-black sky. How beautiful to see that same spark from inside a pumpkin.

Forever imaginations have pointed to stars like a finger against a frosted window, drawing meaning from clusters of light. Eyes turned upward and wondering. If left alone to think, the mind will give us an answer. Was it hallucination? A sign? The voice of spirits?

I realize this is part of my sprawling Tattoo That I Do Not Have Yet. It will start around my back or my waist and wind upward. A zodiac tumbling across flesh plucked and bloodied from an artist's needle.