Guy Davenport on Ronald Johnson’s Transcendentalist Poetry. This headline makes so much more sense today. I initially read it as Guy Davenport on Ronald Reagan’s Transcendentalist Poetry.

When I was in middle school, my friend and three generations of a family died in a house fire. Her name was Katy. She was so kind to me. When I had her over to show her the doll house I made from a shoebox, she said it was great. Her living room was full of plants and animals. They were everywhere: snakes, lizards, spiders, and, below, cats and dogs. The wood floors were water-stained from all the plants. At least that’s how I remember it. I was ashamed then. Full of shame. Didn’t have kids over much. Didn’t know what to do with the kind ones. Katy. Katy Shay. The kids made jokes about her, about the fire, the very next day.

In chemistry, the prefix cis is added to the name of a molecule when two atoms or groups are situated on the same side of a plane of symmetry passing through the molecule, like a double bond between two carbon atoms.

In molecular biology, a cis-acting element regulates a neighboring gene when it binds to a trans-acting element.

The prefix cis comes from the Latin meaning on this side.

Some folks: You chose this [painful or tragic thing]. Me: You didn’t choose this [painful or tragic thing], but you can choose how to respond to this [painful or tragic thing].