It's only May, and already I'm too hot.  82 degrees outside, bright sun, light breeze.  On my small porch, I have an overturned footstool that has been filled with dirt and requisitioned for use as a planter.  I don't know a thing about gardening, but the chives that were so happy to have been moved out of the shade of the deck in the backyard are starting to wilt in the heat.

I've made myself an omelette this morning, using the chives from my footstool, tarragon, and parsley.  It doesn't come out quite the way I want it - overdone on the outside, too underdone on the inside.  It tastes fine, though - fresh and eggy, like real food.  Most people seem to want to drown their omelettes in shredded cheddar cheese.

Sometimes I feel like the chives.  It's hard to stay upright, hard not to wilt in the sun.  At various points in my life I have been accused of being distant, detached.  Uninterested. Uncaring. Selfish, sometimes.  The truth is that caring is dangerous.  Caring gets you hurt.  Hurts others.  Stops progress.  I've heard people say that it's easier not to care, easier to cut yourself off from the world.  Smile and nod. I don't think that's true. Sometimes I consider forgiving alcoholics, wastrels, people who have succumbed to the sun.  It never gets easier.  Really, it only gets harder. Harder to forgive mediocrity, ugliness, inefficiency.

It has been so long since I've seen something beautiful.

Hard, on occasion, not to feel like a child.  Not to want to be a child. Hard not to curl up into a ball, or run away, or do your best to fade away.

It's hard to plate the omelette, invert it just so, and present it so that the smooth underbelly stares up at you, naked and pure and inviting and washed-out daisy-yellow.  Hard to keep it from splitting, hard to keep the underdone custard on the inside from running out of the first knife wound, leaking out the ends, soiling everything with rampant, runny yolk.

Sometimes you just need to grab your dog and hold on for dear life.