I spend a lot of time telling my therapist about the valuable life lessons I pick up on television. She never confirms or denies seeing the relevant shows when I ask her. She simply says, “What do you want me to know about that?” I want to tell her my theory that “Sex and the City’s” Carrie Bradshaw is actually “The West Wing’s” Josh Lyman in drag, but I fear the repercussions. Yesterday, we discussed my plans for the future. I had not yet received the bad news, so she let me chatter on. But the writing was on the wall, and I should have whipped out my reading glasses. The path-crossing black cats did their job with wickedly stealthy precision. That morning, the sky was bright with false hope; I took my dog and a bag of peanuts to Central Park, but there was not a squirrel to be seen. Goblin slouched home, her nub of a tail drooping. What do rodents (and people and black cats) think about when they are crushing your dreams?

I am breathing deeply and releasing. Today, at the park, a flock of squirrels swirled around, snatching the peanuts from mid-air. Goblin jumped delightedly from tree to tree, sending them chattering back up to their branches.

Not a black cat in sight.