A neighbor stopped on my porch and remembered that I'd said my cat wasn't eating much. She asked how he was before she asked anything else, and I got ridiculously close to crying over a cat who was currently trying to steal something off her plate. I made a joke because I didn't want to turn her visit into a whole thing. Since the separation I've told people I'm doing great, mostly because I am relieved and mostly because that ends the questions. Having somebody remember one small worry felt different. I kept offering her more food so she'd sit a little longer, which probably wasn't as subtle as I thought.

At trivia I laughed so hard at our friend's absolutely confident wrong answer that I had to lean against the booth and wait for my breath to come back. Nothing graceful about it, my stomach was tight and my eyes were running while everybody else had moved on to the next question. My voice sounded lower afterward, which I noticed because I'm used to hearing my bright phone voice all day. I hadn't realized how much I was holding my shoulders up until they were against the seat. By the time we left my cheeks actually felt tired. We came nowhere close to winning, but my body apparently thought it was an event worth attending.

I opened the medical office certificate page to find out when the next class starts, and somehow spent half an hour comparing the pictures of the rooms instead. The actual problem is the evening schedule. If I leave work early twice a week I lose calls, and possibly a bonus, but waiting for a month when I won't mind losing a bonus is a pretty good way to never start. I wrote down the class times and what the first payment would be. I haven't done the hopeful speech about changing my life yet. Right now I'm stuck on whether I can make it across town in the gap they allow, especially if my car picks that week to act up.