A ladybug came inside to warm up. It was on the wall last night til Olive knocked it down. This morning it was on the window. Olive jumped up and fell back. I'm thinking about the afterlife of Gertrude Stein. She didn't believe in an afterlife of the soul, but she believed in the afterlife of words. Alice B. Toklas felt her life ending with Gertrude's death, but she began again. Molly Crabapple said It's terrifying to hope this much, about Zohran Mamdani's election. At least he won, meaning the Zionist lobby, with untold wealth and power, can be resisted. We saw a film about the salt marsh sparrows drowning, and being lifted up by people, nest by nest. We're going to witness a lot of death. We're witnesses. All we have is hope, for life, the ephemeral thing with feathers.