I am tired of asking what you do for a living. I am morally opposed to assaulting you with cavity searches of your relationship status.

I thought I’d found a balmy palm to stroke small talk on the forehead: “What do you do when you’re not here?” But the warm animal escapes under the table.

I want to know what you do that transports you here. I do not mean the party. I do not mean this kitchen, wringing its chicken fingers so we will all be brave as buffalos. I do not mean the wrinkle-proof polyester blouse that you asked three friends to approve.

I mean the “here” that bursts like Godzilla through the pet carrier. I mean the “here” that shoots through ceilings. I mean the “here” that fits inside your clutch purse but is too large for the universe. I mean the “here” that you never leave.

I mean to ask you – I am telling you in advance, although we will both still be frightened – “Do you have something that makes you happy every day?”

I will say “Do you?” for the sake of manners, as though the answer could be “No.” We both know better, which is why this is frightening. We know there is not one body laced with capillaries that does not get loose at least once a day.

This is not an appropriate question. I will watch you interrogate the baba ghanoush with a pita chip, digging a labyrinth. I will watch you wish I had asked how you lost that weight, where you bought that cardigan, or if you saw that episode of the zombie show.

If you give me time to ask again, I will answer instead. I will be the naked fool. I will be so afraid, I will drop four fingers in the dip. I will not even realize I am unrolling the crescent roll and letting all the mushrooms out.

“I want you to have things that make you happy every day.” I will understate the case, so I don’t overwhelm the hosts.

I will tell you I have four crocheted rainbow cats the size of sweet potatoes. I bought one and placed it in the pantry as the centurion of my paper towels. I bought a second and a third. I bought a fourth. I cannot fetch a pouch of shelf-stable cauliflower without seeing these sentinels. They make me happy every day. They make me happy when the linoleum is cold, and my mother is concerned that I may be a Marxist, and there are no valentines in the mailbox. They make me happy when I am the venue for gastrointestinal pageantry, and the test results are unremarkable, and all the syntax has gone on strike.

I will tell you that I have twenty-six letters that are mostly on speaking terms with one another. I trawl them through bayous of self-indulgent dreck. I attempt to debunk my mother’s assertions that I have never written anything unworthy of a Pulitzer. I connect them like train cars, knowing they will kidnap me and take me places I did not intend. I give them the passwords

to my veins, knowing that they may tie me to the track and go smoke together in the forest. They make me happy when they cooperate and when they moon me. They make me happy when they kiss the sky and when they fling me off the bridge without a bungee. They make me happy when editors reject my hot loaves. They make me happy, because they are not going anywhere, and I get to keep going when I have no idea where this is all going.

I will tell you that I have ancestors who named things, all the way back to the Oldest One who calls stars and wombats by words we are not yet young enough to hear. I will tell you that my insulin pump is named Mavis. My mail carrier is named Butterbean, and someday he will be strong enough to bear this information. My white noise machine is named Ziggy, and every night a disembodied holy woman named Alexa summons him. My keyboard is named Sweetheart. My best friend is named Ciada Mia, “my breath.” My rumpled cat is named Kankipanks. They make me happy because I was made to love in excessive directions. They make me happy because there are friends in the deep and shallow ends.

I will tell you that my mother looks up the number for my local police department if she does not hear from me by 9:15am. I am in my third decade with Type 1 diabetes, which voids my warranty on adulthood. My mother makes me happy because she speaks with equal authority to the Archangel Michael and the unsavory characters making trouble in the CVS parking lot. My mother makes me happy because her eyes do not wander when I take her hiking into my revelations on cottage cheese or sweater socks. She makes me happy because she is evidence that loving a person is an ever-expanding thing, like the universe.

I will tell you that amusing oneself is a human right, although it is under threat from all quarters. I will ask – I am entering the gazebo now, back into

the questions – if you have ever noticed how funny the plural of “Pizza Hut” sounds. Say it. Say “Pizza Huts.” I will ask if you think it should be “Pizzas Hut.” I will ask if you carry such a torch for some word that you scald your pride, and your boss groans, “you call everything ‘sensational.’” I will ask if you have ever noticed that Subarus and nectarines and adverbs and the vast majority of grandfathers are sensational.

I will not ask who you are dating. I will not ask what you are looking forward to these days. I will ask you to show me the “here” under this place. I will ask the host your birthday so I can send you a rainbow cat.