Well. Hello. It’s been a while.

I honestly did not intend to take all of June off from this column. I’ve been writing Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. regularly for almost 19 years, and sometimes I have felt like the momentum of those years is all that has kept carrying it forward. I still enjoy it when I’m doing it, but the desire to sit down and actually do it has waned, if I am being honest. (Also, I’m not sure anyone is reading it, which doesn’t help.)

Still, I’d like to finish out 20 years if I can, and then see how I feel. So I had planned to take my somewhat traditional week off to celebrate my 45th birthday and then jump right back into it. I had ideas for the next three columns, and with the extra week I was looking forward to exploring more complicated records like Esperanza Spalding’s 12 Little Spells. (Spoiler: It’s really good, but it takes several listens to penetrate.)

And then my beloved cat died.

I will probably not be able to explain this properly to people who don’t own and love pets. I have always had cats – my childhood cat was named Pebbles (because her mother’s name was Marblehead, you see, ha ha) and she was a sweet little creature, especially as she grew older. Ever since then, I’ve been a committed cat person, and the bond that grows between a cat and her human is just indescribable to anyone who hasn’t been through it.

And Shadow was a special cat. She came into my life entirely by accident. I had lost my previous cat, the fiercely loyal Miss Kitty, about a year prior and was still not sure if I wanted another. But then a co-worker’s mother died, and that co-worker begged for help finding a new home for her mom’s cat. And I took a chance. She was named Noirah when I got her, but that felt too exotic for this lovable little black furball. It was my nephew Luke who re-named her: she was a black cat who followed me everywhere, so Shadow seemed to fit.

I had her for four years, and we became good friends. I know that sounds weird to people who don’t have pets, but it’s true. She was a snuggly, affectionate cat, and I couldn’t have asked for a better four-legged companion. But she was old when I took her in, and I knew even then it wouldn’t last long. She had bladder problems for the entire time I knew her, and was on medication and special food. Finally, a week or so before my birthday, she developed a tumor in her bladder that prevented her from using the litter box. (Well, that’s not true. She would go to the litter box and sit there for whole minutes while nothing happened, and leave frustrated. It was the saddest thing.)

Finally she stopped eating and drinking, knowing in that way that cats know that things were not going to get better. My vet told me there was nothing we could do. We put her on pain meds and made her as comfortable as we could. And on June 10, with me petting her and telling her it was OK, she died. It was awful. I am singularly incapable of describing in words how awful it was.

And afterward I kind of stopped everything for a bit. Some of you may know that I have this ongoing daily Star Trek project I do. I stopped that as well. I told myself that these things are mine, and I can stop them if I want to for as long as I want to. So I did. Like I said, I honestly did not expect this mourning period-slash-hiatus to last all month, but it has. Oddly, it took traveling to another country to put my spirits right – I’m writing this in Lausanne, Switzerland, in a hotel that overlooks Lake Geneva. I’m here for work, but just being in this place has felt like healing.

So this is the first tm3am column in a month, the longest break I have ever taken. And I don’t know what the future of this little project is, but I felt inspired to write this re-introductory piece and, hopefully, get back on the weekly horse. I’ve been listening to plenty of great new music – I’m especially excited by the new Bryan Scary, which is finally, finally out, but there’s Buddy and Julie Miller and the Appleseed Cast and the Raconteurs and Baroness and the Divine Comedy, and there’s a new Keane coming. I have plenty to write about. I just need the will to write it.

So I will leave this as a statement of purpose, and I’ll be back to this very soon. Thanks to everyone who sent messages of support. And thanks to Shadow for the last four years. It was an honor being your human.

We will return to your regularly scheduled silly music column shortly. Thank you.

See you in line Tuesday morning.