My house is a never-ending rotating series of slumber spots for the four-leggeds in the house. Mo is no exception. In fact she is the most industrious (if not adventurous) of the bunch. At 10 years-old, Mo, a blue-eyed genetic misfit of a cat, has been with me the longest. She has traveled across the country 4 times, moved 9 times.

Aside from our first road trip from Sheridan, WY to Missoula, MT, during which she sat in the back window of my ‘89 Ford Tempo and absolutely screamed in a pitch I am thankful my brain refuses to recollect the entire way, she deals very really well with transition. In fact, after that first car ride from hell, she actually settled into life on the road. On our first cross country journey, she would get out at rest stops to go for walks, trotting side-by-side with Annie, my 70 lb Belgian Shepherd, on a leash much like a dog. Leaving most people in tears, laughing at the absolutely ridiculous sight when they would realize that yes, indeed, that was a cat trotting on a leash. Somewhere around Chicago, it became clear that Mo had a thing for semi trucks and so I got in the habit of rolling the window down ever-so-slightly as we passed one. Mo would run to the open space, stick her tiny little head out and with 80 mile-per-hour winds blowing her eyeballs back, she would howl at them. Howl. And once we had passed it, she would pull her wind blown mane back into the car and return, quietly, to casually watching the road fly by. It was ridiculous.

Perhaps introducing a cat to the wild and wonderful world was my first mistake. As a result, Mo wants more from life. She wants to trot around the yard during blizzards and then rush into the house to give a full report of her five minutes in frigid temps. Mo wants something to do, somewhere to go, and to talk about it, for hours every night. Unfortunately, she is a cat. Instead she rotates sleeping spots, from the highest most absurd location, to the depths of the back corner of my closet. Switching it up, increasing the level of daring, frequently. The only common thread that she has carried with her from her days on the road and her brief adventures in the wild…

She must talk about it for hours every night. You can’t not love that cat.

I woke up at a ridiculously early 4:45 am this morning. It is the proverbial first day of the rest of my life and it feels like Christmas. I’m going to try flying solo, writing and editing independently, with a little side employment to cushion the financial shock of it all.

Spent the last two hours researching possibilities. Two hours turned up a bevy of opportunity to go after.

What is a bevy anyway?

On an early morning run with my beloved superman-esque brother , I began babbling about my vision. Freelance writing. Science specifically, but whatever happened to hit me as interesting in general. We bounced ideas back and forth. Ways to get started. Avenues to go down. That was where Noctuid came to be. The idea behind it was to create. To write. To develop a portfolio. What it has manifested into is a hit or miss hodge podge of rambling thus far.

Somewhere in this scrambled mess, I managed to get a little piece published in High Country News that somehow got picked up by newspapers across the west. A little piece put together at my kitchen counter, in a not so different fashion from the stream of consciousness I am so accustomed to spitting out. A little piece from the gut.

I have a feature article in cue. This time, I pitched an idea. Not only was the idea picked up, but I received a budget for my research and an actual contract. It feels like I’m going somewhere.

Interviews are done. Photos are taken. A draft is in cue.

I love words. I love the mere idea that this could be my life.

Some people find solace in drugs and alcohol when their lives get uncomfortably stressful. Others get angry, take it out on the world. Not me. I’m too much of a control freak for drugs and too engrained in a need-to-be-productive philosophy to drink, heavily anyway. And seeing as I was raised in the mid-west in a large Catholic family, there is absolutely no way I could lash out at the world. Instead, I like to take care of broken animals. In fact, I’d say I have a pathological draw toward the weak, weary, broken down, lost, ill-cared-for, throw away animal. My very small 500 sq ft apartment is currently filled with 6, count ‘em 6, peacefully relaxing beings of the furred, four-legged variety. All rescued from some sort of tumult.

My latest: a 6 month old yellow lab. He was brought into the Emergency Clinic last Monday when I was working. Hit by a car. His owner, a very inebriated woman, was devastated and actually did care very much for him. She just couldn’t pay the estimated vet bill to get him fixed. So, she authorized to have him euthanized. 6 months old. Nothing but a broken scapula. Hollywood cute. Eyes rich with life. His tail wagged during every painful diagnostic procedure. He licked my face during every x-ray. Sat patiently. Wagged. Wagged some more. When we tapped his lungs to draw out any fluid: more tail wagging. I couldn’t euthanize him. Not a chance. My plan was to see what his body would overcome given nothing but time. With a head injury from impact, a hell of a road rash and a broken shoulder the assumption was if he made it through the night just on sheer physiological prowess (and a shot of steroids), we’d revisit what to do. Needless to say when I walked in the back the next morning I found an adorable puppy… wagging his tail.

Its been 10 days since he was hit, 7 since his shoulder was fixed. I’ve named him Tex, for Texas because his heart and patience is as big as, well, Texas. He sleeps most of the day. Walks, wags and loves to eat. Tex is 110% lab. His shoulder is healing beautifully, his road rash looks as glorious as necrotic tissue can. I admit openly that I am a sucker, but of all the animals that have passed through my door, and there have been many, there is something about Tex that grips every ounce of my being. He is nothing like the dogs that make permanent residence in my house. I like fast, high energy, difficult to manage dogs. I like challenge dogs. Tex is squishy. Tex wants a comfortable spot to kick it and some good food. He wants for little else. Tex is as easy as they come. Finding a home for him will be the easiest placement of my years long career in way-ward critters.

He’ll be the hardest to give up.