and — also — to

How many times is too many time to listen to the song exile? I’m not even a Taylor Swift fan but it has its hooks in me and I’m late to the party, the party of none, the party of one, the party of now I’m medium-adjusted to taking off my mask while walking down the street, to allowing myself to feel a careful hope, to yelling a little less, to praying we get through the summer alive, to to to…

— -and and and…I write to my sister and sister-in-law. I’m not sure anyone’s real anymore if I haven’t seen them in this long. Hologram sister-in-law? Hologram house listing. Hologram laptop multi-tasking. Hologram dancing with a kid-sized hot pink hairbrush to Love on Top during a work break, while also prepping dinner.

— also also also, the longevity of duress, the duration of stress, the length of time to get over a break up is about three months, a year and a half for divorce. I can still feel my heart broken three different ways.

This morning, I confront the workers who use our potted plants as their doorstop when going in and out and in and out in-between banging new holes into our walls where they’re supposed to be doing repairs. I ask if they saw the sign I had put up, which is no longer hanging on the front door.

WORKERS,
PLEASE BE CAREFUL
WHEN MOVING THE PLANTS.
YOU HAVE BROKEN THEM

and an illustration of a (barfing) stick figure with a thumbs-down by Pia. It’s not nice, either way. It’s not nice to confront. It’s not nice to have your sugar snap peas which were only an experiment really but now, a failed one, even though there was a single snap pea that had sprouted and it was perfect.