You know that thing where you start catching up on sleep deficit and the magnitude hits you like a brick? Yeah. I’m there. I am so tired I feel half dead. I feel pain in every part of my body. My kids fought all day yesterday and today they woke up fighting. So I arranged for both of them to talk to a friend on video chat. Let’s get those positive hormones going. They both need to be reminded that people like them too. They aren’t just a problem or anxious or fussy. They have people who feel joy at the sight of them. They feel joy when they see their friends.

I am not the center of everything. I am not capable of being your only source of joy.

Today I must get to the post office. Then the grocery store. Also the kid store because we are about out of diapers. I don’t want to but I must. Luckily I woke up to talk to one of my friends too. She says that if we find a place to land where they are capable of following us, she is on the next plane with her brood. They want out of California and they just don’t know where to go. I don’t know if they will be able to follow us out of the country, they aren’t tech workers. But it would be cool. She is someone I’ve kept from the home schooling group. She writes to me often. She asks questions about me; she tells me about her life. She volunteers her love so freely. I feel lucky to know her. Is she a mess in a dress? Sometimes. But she is also loving, giving, accepting, and fun. She cares about me and she shows it in a variety of ways. I feel special to her.

But in the bay I had to drive an hour to see her so we rarely got to spend time together.

I talk to her as much from other countries as I did in the same state. Because distance is funny.

Once I figure out mail stuff a little bit better I am ordering a damn bonnet. Not the historical white person kind–the kind that African American folk use to preserve their braids. I did cool braids yesterday and today I look like a fucking frizz ball and that annoys the crap out of me. I feel bad about the amount of stealing hair advice I get from Black folk, and I feel like white hair advice makes my hair look like shit.