Living with chaos
On habits, resolutions, and best intentions
I want to first express my grief over the wildfires in Los Angeles. I have many friends in the LA area and have been heartbroken watching the fires destroy homes and communities. We lived in Oakland, CA for 13 years and I, like many people, believed wildfires were not a threat to those of us living in the city, surrounded by concrete. What we learned this week is that fires are as much an urban threat as a rural/suburban one, and they do not discriminate. I would like to share some resources if you’re inclined to donate money or goods or volunteer your time.
This year has already gotten off to a rocky start for many and I am not particularly optimistic that things will get better any time soon. So that’s why I want to talk a little bit about habits, resolutions, and best intentions.
I don’t always make New Year’s resolutions, but I really want to exercise more in 2025, so I resolved to do just that. And to that end I listened to The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. It was an interesting book on how habits form, are broken, and how they can work for or against us.
Essentially a habit consists of a trigger (I’m awake), a routine (I reach for my phone), and a reward (I have notifications!). The reward doesn’t even have to really be a reward (most of my notifications are junk) — it just has to be something we anticipate and then receive. So if you want to, for instance, stop drinking wine after work and exercise instead, you need to figure out what reward you want (ie, to unwind after work), find a trigger you can attach to that reward (coming home from work and picking up your Nintendo Switch instead of a glass of wine), and then the routine is following through with your exercise routine (playing Just Dance for 30 minutes).
Exercise isn’t the only habit I’ve been trying to acquire. I also want to eat healthier, read the books I bought 5 years ago and haven’t gotten around to reading, learn another language, spend more time with my family, spend more time outside, spend less time on emails and more time writing, use up my scrap yarn, get organized, spruce up the house, start making my own tortillas… You know, just like be an entirely different person who makes entirely different choices all day every day and gets around to doing every single thing she’s ever offhandedly said she wants to do.
But we can dream, right? We can enter every year, month, Monday morning with our best intentions and that’s ok. That’s enough. Because inevitably life will intervene and we’ll have to put off some of those goals or adjust our expectations or just realize that we’re constitutionally not exactly the person we see in our fantasies. I read recently that a painter never uses all their paint, and that made me feel better. Like we’re all going to die with unfinished plans and stuff we wanted to get around to and that’s fine. That’s the human condition.
I said that life will inevitably intervene and all our intentions and best laid plans will crumble between our fingertips. And that happens to me a lot, as it does with everyone. But I’ve noticed that, more often than not, I’m the one intervening, barging into my own life as it’s nicely humming along and adding complications and restrictions and stepping on my own feet and gumming up the works until everything that had been going smoothly is now all out of whack again.
Enter: The dog.
My son and I finally wore my husband down and last week we got a dog, an adorable French bulldog named Mr. Pickles. Now, I want to preface this story with 2 caveats: 1) I am notoriously bad at estimation. Any kind of estimation, whether it’s knowing how much salmon to buy for 8 adults, how much time it will take me to get ready for a party, or how much work is required to care for an 11-month-old dog. And 2) I have never really had a dog before. We had a dog when I was a kid, but owning a dog in Texas in the 80s-90s is not really comparable to owning a dog in Massachusetts in 2025. My family’s approach to dogs can best be summed up by the following George Lopez routine:
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Our dog lived outside, did her business outside, and our financial investment in her was limited to shampoo, flea collars, and a yearly vet checkup. But I am quickly learning that this is not the way people own dogs nowadays. As soon as I announced I was getting a dog, a dozen different friends asked me if I was getting pet insurance to which I responded…
And I’m also learning that living with Mr. Pickles is like living with a really strong toddler who won’t wear a diaper. In a week he’s pooped/peed on pretty much everything on the first floor of our house, terrified my cats, humped my neighbor’s leg, chewed through three door jambs, humped my daughter’s leg, eaten a dog bed, and proven that he is impervious to the tranquilizing effects of the drug, gabapentin.
Don’t get me wrong: he’s a lovely dog. He has a sweet personality and is generally a good boy. But he’s also an entire demon straight from hell and I really had no idea what I was getting into. We have an appointment with a dog trainer in a week and I’m hoping that after that Mr. Pickles will be (somewhat) civilized. But in the meantime we have to take him outside basically every hour, rub lime on our door jambs, play with him, tire him out, distract him, route the cats away from him (and route them away from my daughter’s room which is where they have decided they would prefer to go to the bathroom rather than their litter box), and keep him away from my neighbor’s leg. It’s exhausting. And instead of ascending into my zen cottagecore era, I’m spending hours cleaning carpets and throwing a tennis ball and carrying hissing cats up and down stairs.
And I did this. This was all me. I’m fully aware of that. I think knowing that these are the consequences of my actions coming back to slobber all over my hands (did I mention my husband and I are allergic to his saliva??) makes it easier to deal, as the only person I can resent is me. But finding the balance now between self care and family care and work and dog duty is all a bit much.
So if I miss the mark on my resolution I am preemptively absolving myself here, fourteen days into the year. And I absolve all of you, too, if you’re already realizing that your best intentions may have to wait a little while.
“Perfection is the enemy of the good.” (I’m pretty sure I got that from Karamo on Queer Eye.) It means that just because we can’t be perfect doesn’t mean we can’t be good. I might not run five miles today but I can walk the dog, I can play cards with my son, I can text a friend who’s going through it and then try to have salad with my dinner. It’s enough.
Blessings and peace for the new year.
xoxo
Upcoming stuff
Paperbacks of The Bullet Swallower go on sale 1/21! You can preorder them here.
2/1/25 - I’ll be in Bridgeport, CT at Black Rock Books in conversation with Christine Kandic Torres in collaboration with Fairfield County Story Lab. Event starts at 5:30pm. Please RSVP here.
2/2/25 - I’ll be at Trillium Brewery in Canton, MA from 2-4pm for a book and beer tasting sponsored by Hygge House Books. I’ll be joined by NYTimes bestselling horror author Paul Tremblay and nationally bestselling author Marjan Kamali for a really fun event where you’ll sample some beer, sample some books, and hopefully find a few really great reads. Not a bad way to spend Groundhog Day! Tickets are $35 and include beer and $10 off a book of your choice. More info here.
2/6/25 - I am honored to be a guest of Texas A&M International University in Laredo, TX (my hometown until I was 10) and Texas Humanities. At 6:30pm I’ll be at the Villa Antigua Border Museum giving a talk and a reading about the US/Mexico border and how I represented it in The Bullet Swallower. This is a really meaningful one for me since it is my hometown. If you’re in the area please come by and say hello!
Stay safe out there <3
Truth! Perfection is the enemy of the good. I almost get a dog every year for my eleven year dog enthusiast. This is a solid reminder for me to consider if I'm ready! Love Mr. Pickles the half dog, half demon. 😂😭
Shout out Mr. Pickles