I'm sorry, Jesse. That has to be hard for the family, after what happened with your dad.

Atropa, you still have an iPod?! I'm sorry it's on its last legs.

Oh, geez, Jesse, I'm so sorry to hear that.

Oh, Matilda. So, so hard. Which doesn't even begin to describe it adequately. Nothing does.

I did go to the pool, and one of the lifeguards said,"Hi! Good to see you! It's been a while," which made me feel loved. Oof, it will take some time to get back up to speed. Which, of course it will; it's been months.

Atropa, you still have an iPod?! I'm sorry it's on its last legs.

I love my iPod so much that I'm probably going to pay the money for a refurbished one on the secondary market. I want a headphone jack and the ability to transfer music from my library on my computer, because I am a cranky old goth.

Matilda came home directly after school (an absolute rarity). I gave her a hug and we flopped on the couch. She laid her head in my lap and I covered her with a blanket and we watched Ms. Mojo videos for a bit.

She requested comfort food, specifically something I made for her and her friends years ago when I did my turn of a summer parental co-op where each parent took a turn once a week.

So I toasted a baguette and put marinara and cheese on it and ran it under the broiler for French Bread Pizza.

Then she retired to her bed where she watched comfort anime on her phone and ate Girl Scout Cookie Samoas.

All I can do is love her. But it's just hard and it's just sad, and that's where she is.

All I can do is love her. But it's just hard and it's just sad, and that's where she is.

You are doing it all right. So many hugs for both of you.

That sounds like a good comfort scenario, to the extent that anything can be.

Sorry about the iPod, Atropa. I wish Right to Repair was more of a thing.

My 80GB iPod lives in my car. Once it dies, I will disentangle my music from iTunes.

We've been alternating grey, overcast days with bright, blue sky days and the roulette wheel of weather has landed on grey again.

Therapy day for Matilda so I'm hoping that helps.

We talked some last night about how to organize her gap year. Still pretty amorphous, and we're not entirely aligned yet, but some understanding of the terrain at least.

Some days are just harder, I imagine. Even if you've been going along for a while. I just ate Samoas, too. Samoa solidarity.

Mr. Loomycakes unearthed my OLD old original 40GB iPod, so tonight I'll connect it to my old laptop that has my iTunes library and transfer over the most important music and playlists. A stopgap solution, because I don't know how long that one will survive, either.