•  talked about warheads/candy on the walk back to apartment. i said something bad. it was…i asked if zachary ever ate very gross things, at lunch, as a child. he said ‘no.’ the bad thing i said sounded probably like this: ‘because like, i like, we would like, for all of lunch in fourth or fifth grade, like it would be things like tuna mixed with jell-o, like that, we would like, just dare each other to see who could eat the worst thing, for the whole time.’ the point of the story, i thought zachary was thinking, was so he could see how i did unexpected interesting stuff as a little girl (the kind of ‘usual tricks’ i do in the beginnings of relationships, which he seems tired of hearing and i wasn’t sure i was saying/doing intentionally), which resulted in me saying ‘like’ a lot, because i knew if i said ‘nevermind’ and stopped talking that would mean things were unsalvageable, not worth trying for. my ‘likes’ were an attempt at stalling i think, like (haha), to see if i could think of something better instead of the bad story i was unstoppably telling.

•  stove gas did not turn on. i said ‘i guess we’ll just eat salad.’ zachary asked to see my phone and looked up how to cook a steak in a toaster oven. he read something excitedly, a person talking about the benefits of cooking steak in a toaster oven. the person really had it figured out. it was funny.

•  felt cluttered in the kitchen, thinking about what i would do to help cook. i said ‘do you want me to help around here? i’ve got plenty of other stuff to do.’ zachary said he didn’t need help and i felt good not helping, continuing to unpack. we listened to an urban outfitters sampler, i think, from the early 2000’s. sometimes i’d say ‘what is this, i remember this’ and zachary would sometimes say what it was and if he remembered it.

•  at some point the thing i had hung all my dresses on became unattached from closet and it made a loud noise and i made a noise just as loud at the same time. zachary came over and we were shrugging/grinning. asked him what to do, sort of thinking he would know because of his carpentry stuff, and he said ‘i don’t know, probably call the super,’ looking at the fallen clothes.