She’d be turning 54 this weekend, Wendy, that is, my friend who committed suicide in 2001, only three months before the Towers fell. Everything about Wendy to me was just right. Her wit, her intelligence, her smile. Even her ability to keep the darkness shielded. As the years pass, the small details become vibrant memories: the cadence of her annoyance, the deep cuts of her mid-Western references, her ever-abiding love of the city of Chicago. Often, I imagine what her life would be like right now. Possibly living in Los Feliz, a house in the hilly part, with a view of the basin it sits upon. She’d be child-free. She’d have a barrage of commentary about her Tinder/Bumble/Match dating life, and it would be the running monologue that would keep me in stitches. Working diligently, writing her fifth screenplay. Yes, she would have become a successful screenwriter, steering clear of the more collaborative writer’s rooms. Preferring to smoke her cigarettes alone, her blonde hair moving carelessly as she constantly gyrated; no, she would never have cottoned to the still. She’d have a new kitten, that orange rotund one only having just died. She’d still drive a stick shift, a Prius as she was environmentally-minded. It’s highly likely that she would forgo the phone completely, now only communicating with me and everyone else via text; it’s so sad she did not live to see how easy it is to avoid interacting with humanity, thanks to a keyboard. If she’d only had a glimpse into the future, maybe she would not have held that heavy .357 magnum in her hand. How easy it would be to be to angrily articulate your feelings and hit send. How easy it would be to be invisible. How easy it would be to say NO. She would probably never have mastered eye contact, but it wouldn’t matter to me, as it didn’t then. If she were still alive that is. If only she were still alive.

Well this week has resulted in the POTATUS rescinding a promise to the LGBTQ community that he would support them. It’s this the first of his campaign promises he’s lied about? You tell me. Thank goodness we have the power of our voices, like this one. I want to see more notes like this one, in the public school I was recently in, that reminds Trans kids that they are supported and loved.

And then Kellyanne Conway finds a way to make you laugh yourself to oblivion: “There’s an individual feminism, if you will, that you make your own choices. … I look at myself as a product of my choices, not a victim of my circumstances. That’s really to me what conservative feminism, if you will, is all about.”

Maybe there’s hope in some other areas, like in the childcare arena, thanks to Ivanka Trump.

Singing to your dog is a good thing, not a sign that you’re batshit crazy.

Barbara Ehrenreich: “Pay all workers better. The big labor innovation of the 21st century has been campaigns seeking to raise local or state minimum wages. Activists have succeeded in passing living-wage laws in more than a hundred counties and municipalities since 1994 by appealing to a simple sense of justice: Why should someone work full time, year-round, and not make enough to pay for rent and other basics?”

The only thing that could possibly help me fall asleep faster would be the idea of comfy socks.

I don’t really care who has more orgasms as long as I have them and hopefully you do too.

Wait, what? Moms feel harried?

And now have a laugh with Lea DeLaria.