Mom took a box of toothpaste from a grocery bag and walked to me. She said ‘now, do you know how long it took me to find this? I figured out it has to say the color, it has to say ‘radiant white,’ it has to say it’s white. Because I bought this other kind and it was blue, there was all this blue gook everywhere, yuck. I know it doesn’t matter but I just think that’s not what whitening toothpaste is supposed to be! And then I made the mistake of buying this other kind that turned out to be ‘psychedelic orange.”

I said ‘was it orange flavor too?’

She said ‘yes, it was. It was really, really sick.’

She told dad about the astronaut video but she didn’t think he’d like it. I said ‘he definitely won’t like it if both of us told him about it.’

5:42pm: wandered around ‘looking for things,’ stalling drive. I said ‘I can’t find my water bottle lid, it’s black.’

Mom said ‘I’ll help you look for it, it’s black? A black lid?’

I said ‘yeah, definitely a black lid.’

Mom said ‘black lid, definitely, definitely a black lid’ in ‘rain man’ voice.

I said ‘yeah because it’s definitely a black lid.’

Searched different rooms at a similar pace, saying things in ‘rain man’ voice. She said ‘do you want these? I found them in the car and they are [funny voice] so not me,’ holding a pair of glasses that looked sort of like Zachary’s. I said ‘I’ll take them, sure. Were they grandma’s?’ she said ‘you know, they very well might’ve been. They very well might’ve been, because I don’t know how they ended up here. Your grandma used to like to steal other people’s glasses, at the end of her life.’

I said the black lid was probably at my apartment. Mom said something about a case of water bottles in the garage, then ‘don’t bring them up, I’ll have dad bring them up.’ Picked up case of 36 small water bottles and started walking up stairs. Mom said ‘oh honey you didn’t have to lift those things.’ I said ‘I know, it just seemed easier for me to do it.’

Mom said ‘what would I do without you’ in funny voice.

I said ‘you would be okay, you would just be dehydrated.’

She said ‘I wouldn’t pee.’

5:45–9:25PM: drove.

9:30pm: emailed Juliet that I’d be online in 30mins for Skype interview. Parked ten blocks south of apartment.

10:30PM: i like the walk from 108th st to 118th st. a lot of open windows, unnamed stores, hurricane-damaged buildings that look easier to forget than repair. passed a tattooed woman leaning out a window, looking somewhere i wouldn’t go, facing the same distance.