“Cognitively I know that life is precious and beautiful and blah blah blah. Can we agree on that?”

“Absolutely,” I said. 

“But I no longer feel it. The Hallmark cards and TikTok posts and insipid beer commercials tell me to feel it, plead with me to feel it. Do I most days? Alas, no. Freud spoke of ordinary unhappiness as something to hope for. I understand this completely now. An evening under the duvet, with a pint of Häagen-Dazs, watching reruns of Law & Order? I’ll take it.” He was drunk, bonkers, and made complete sense to me.

my finger ooooouch 😢 but I ordered liquid skin and gel finger sock bandages, determined not to pass out (gonna put sugar under my tongue and sit on the floor), trying to stay home (!)

Tarot Bot recommended collaging The Hermit thus - impractical advice and I already did that one, with a double meaning inscription from The Wasteland (a cover of Canterbury Tales prologue)

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne, And smale foweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open ye 👁

"April is the Cruelest Month ft Looking Forward to It"

It’s a strange thing to have your life upended, to go to lawyers and pay a lot of money and not speak to this person you were once married to. To part with half of your life savings. To become bitter and angry and no longer trusting of people.

Not strange even 🤏. When I was talking with the union lawyer, I joked that in jobs like ours eh you get divorced a couple few times 🤷🏻‍♀️ - he didn't laugh, but my coworker did. It's the (still) Alive (again) part, as inevitable as April, painful cold sloppy muddy shitty. And the why? A: Because. 

(Got a better idea?)

“Do you think this is a male problem?” I asked. 

“Absolutely. Women are vastly more intelligent emotionally and frankly that’s the only intelligence that matters. I can list every world capital and details of America’s involvement in the Pacific Theater during World War II but can’t mention to the occasional lady friend why I weep when I watch a Subaru commercial.” 

“The one with the dad and the school bus.” 

“You know the one.”