I took a little break from writing to work on other things…you know, like sleeping, cursing at Adobe products, and prepping for a big upcoming project I’ll be announcing soon(ish). Cue the suspenseful music and dramatic slow zoom.

Also, shoutout to me for getting published again in the local paper, 28 times now, for those of you keeping score at home. A couple of those even landed in their quarterly magazine, which means I’m either doing something right or they’ve just stopped checking the bylines. Either way, thanks, journalism gods.

Anyway, I return now from my brief sabbatical. Did anything catastrophically dumb or hilariously on-brand for the Dumbest Timeline™ happen while I was gone? Of course it did. But I’ll catch up on the doomscrolling later.

For now, enjoy a palate cleanser: cats.

This week’s lineup includes Samson, Dice, and Arizona. Emperor, my void beast of darkness and judgment, is absent because he’s basically a sentient shadow that eats light and patience. He’ll make his debut later when my new speedlite trigger arrives and I can attempt to photograph what is essentially a living black hole.

Samson, who is 17 and carries the weary expression of a creature who’s seen humanity at its worst (read: me at 3 a.m. in my underwear eating shredded cheese over the sink), gave me a glorious Power Stare after hearing Tybee bark. Frankly, I’m surprised Tybee’s still alive.

Arizona, crowned World’s Most Photogenic Cat by an unbiased panel of me, remains fascinated by the shutter sound of my camera. Mirrorless cameras may no longer go KA-CHUNK like the old DSLRs, but the soft “robot snack dispenser” whir is apparently just as mesmerizing.

Dice, my loyal Familiar™ and part-time lighting technician, has been trailing me like a clingy ex. He generously supervised my attempt to unpack and revive a lighting setup I hadn’t touched since before the plague times. For once, he didn’t knock anything over, so we’re counting that as growth.

More chaos soon. Possibly with lasers. Possibly with politics. Possibly with more cats. Stay tuned.