My new neighbor is outside her house sweeping up ash, she stops me to tell me they almost bought a house in Atladena. They were deciding between that one and the one next to us, and one day when she was visiting this one, I walked by with Bobbie and said hello, and I made her feel like it’d be a nice place to live, so they bought the house in our neighborhood, instead. She checked, and the house they almost bought in Altadena has burned to the ground.

I wonder if, my career had gone differently, if I’d worked more or on different things, if the Notebook had gotten better reviews, we would have been able to afford a new house, and if that house would be in Altadena, which has now burned to the ground.

I check on friends who are at a 10 except the people who actually lost or can’t access their homes, those people are at a stunned 6 or 7, sort of calm in the aftermath, ripping open plastic packages of new socks.

I imagine myself in the worst of situations, worry presses on my lungs. Our bags sit by the door, I see a red bike out the window and I jump. I cry over houses that weren’t my own and pictures of people I’ve never met, I make a red velvet cake. This city is 30 miles wide and 40 miles long and I sit in the clearest part. The fire happens at and around me, but not to me, but only this time, next time is a dry hill out the window I keep one eye on as I turn out the light.