The last three days have been a clumsy stumble through my thoughts and over my feet, and suddenly I'm gripped with almost paralyzing fear. I expected to feel profound sadness, but I didn't know I'd get this scared. Fear over absolutely nothing and then everything all at once. It's like a scene in a movie where you suddenly notice the ghost of a little girl peeking inside the window.

This morning at 5 AM the smoke detectors in my room and Leta's room started beeping. The piercing sound lasted about ten seconds and then stopped just as abruptly as it had started. Five minutes later the smoke detector in Marlo's room followed suit. This duet between sets of detectors continued every five minutes, and I held Leta in my arms the entire time, her body trembling with the idea that the house was about to burn down, her quivering lower lip a physical manifestation of what is going on inside my heart.

I turned on the monitor to check on Marlo, and since she was just lying in her crib singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star — well, a sort of warbling hybrid of that and the Isty Bitsy Spider because songs are just continuations of other songs, it's all just music to her — I decided to leave her to her party while Leta and I checked the house to see if anything was amiss. She gripped my leg as I walked, the same way I used to grip my mother's leg when I was scared. My older child looks almost nothing like me, but the differences stop there. Every molecule of blood in our bodies flows to a shared rhythm.

Nothing in the house was out of place, and while I looked at the map of circuit breakers in the basement with my wild-haired miniature worrier wrapped around my waist the smoke detectors decided to go back to sleep.

"Why did they make that noise, Mom?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I'm not sure," I answered. "I guess they just malfunctioned."

"But why?" she pressed.

"I don't know, Leta," I said. "I'm sorry. Sometimes I just don't know the answer."

Of all the videos in this meme, this one is gunning to be my favorite.

Saturday night I hosted house guests plus a couple of more friends for dinner. Well, let me back up a second. Pardon me if my brain seems addled, I'm a bit dehydrated from watering the bathroom floor with my eyes. If only it were covered with plants!

My friends Ryan and Cole from Florida and Maggie crashed here during Alt Summit.

Ryan is great friends with photographer Jason Hudson who also happens to be a fantastic cook. So we called him to tell let him know he'd be cooking dinner for six adults. I was like, listen. I don't know you, but think fast, hon. If I write about this you will be judged, and considering what's been said about me in the last week the Internet will hear about what you cooked and if they don't like it they will accuse you of botoxing your entire face.

THE CONNECTION IS SO OBVIOUS. Once I write about it YOUR FACE IS FAIR GAME.

Ryan and I picked him up from his hotel and hit a grocery store to pick up ingredients. Problem is Ryan had his own ideas about what a good meal on a snowy Saturday night might look like, and Jason? Jason has his own ideas about everything. Including the idea that Ryan is always wrong.

The menu we showed up to shop for changed four times before they both agreed on pork roast, and as we were checking out Jason pulled me aside and asked if people ever recognize me around town. I said sometimes, usually after I've worked out and am looking like a herding dog who has rolled around in the snow, yes. And now that the local news has covered Recent Happenings, how scandalous is it that I'm grocery shopping with two strange men?

As a favor he snapped three times, waved his arm dramatically and pretended to faint. "Well, then," he said. "Let me really gay it up for you."

(Jason is gay so he is allowed to to gay it up. Don't be mean to him. Also, he doesn't botox anything. Except maybe his enemies.)

(I can see the headline now: DOOCE MISSES DATING GAY MEN, RECENT HAPPENINGS EXPLAINED)

You guys would never believe the meal he put together. It was like a Thanksgiving feast just whipped out of thin air: pork roast with rosemary, a green bean salad, mashed potatoes, and apple chutney. A FEW THINGS: Ryan and Cole threw together a signature salad that trumps any salad I've ever eaten, so I have to give them credit for that part of the meal. I don't want them to read this, see that I didn't mention the salad, and then FedEx me the severed finger of one of my close relatives.

Also, I pitched in with the mashed potatoes, and when Jason glanced over and saw what I was doing he broke out into glorious song: "Salt salt, butter butter, salt salt, butter butter, salt salt, butter butter, salt salt, butter butter, AMERICAAAAAAAAA!" Because he's Canadian and they are more civilized. I was like, I bet your nightly news starts with, "BREAKING: Local woman is rude to her neighbor."

ALSO: Apple chutney? Who just whips up apple chutney? I mean, other than Gwyneth?

I may have referred to it as apple chutley all night but only because I want to live next door to a Chutley who shovels the snow in his bathrobe and slippers while holding an unlit cigar in his mouth.

A much needed good time, and I'm so lucky to know all these people. It feels really good to take photos again.