There are two bags of dirty laundry baking in the trunk of my car, enclosed within a double heat dome. I was going to take them to the laundromat while our repair guys finished, but then I decided we could survive without these clothes and linens for a few more days. Instead of washing them on high heat to kill the last vestiges of lice and their unborn children, I’m letting the pests dry out naturally in the Virginia summertime. I can see my car through the window, parked in full sun, and I wait.

It reminds me of the other vigil I’m keeping at the new house. I was told that English ivy was an invasive plant that would eventually choke out our trees, which were tangled in evergreen vines from trunk to canopy. So I went around the perimeter of our property with an electric saw and cut all the vines at their roots. And then I watched as the lush ivy leaves wilted and turned brown. When I saw climbers that were still photosynthesizing amidst their dead family members, I returned to finish them off. It felt a bit sick, to be honest, reveling in the slow death of all this green stuff, but revel I did. Matt and Bean and I would be watching TV, and I’d pause the show to make them look out the window and admire how my ivy was meeting its doom.

Now here I am, sitting in the air conditioned house, insulated from all this death I’ve caused on the other side of the glass, and I know that a person I love is dying. As I write this, she is dying. Her body has begun to fail. She’s in her bed far away, so I don’t know if she feels like drinking water, or holding a child’s hand, or seeing what the plants are doing outside her window. I don’t know if she feels the sadness of it, or if she feels the sadness in a different way than we do. Because one minute you’re energized by your lifelong climb toward the sun, and the next minute you’re wondering why you can’t feel the earth, and why you’re so thirsty, and where the time went.

All I can do right now is hold her in my little heat dome of a heart and treasure her like she has treasured all of us, for as long as she could. For the past two afternoons we’ve had these grand summer storms, where the atmosphere has rumbled and flashed and drenched our forests in rain, and I wonder if she knows that they happened, or if she’s been sleeping, and will instead have to remember all the rains that came before.

It stands to reason that if lice are discovered roaming around on your head, you want them to be fresh lice. You don’t want to become an amateur epidemiologist, thinking back to when your head first started itching, and to how none of the dandruff shampoos you tried did the trick, and to all the upholstered things you slept and sat upon recently, including the lounge area of a charter boat, and to all the lingering, meaningful hugs you’ve given since your symptoms started, and to how, with Google’s help, you’ve privately begun to attribute the incessant scratching to a rare neuropathy or perhaps advanced skin cancer of the scalp.

Because it makes more sense that a solitary louse would be born behind my ears this week, fully formed like Athena from Zeus’s forehead, and not conceived by other lice who were running rampant through Bean’s classroom toward the end of the school year, lice which then crawled onto my child and laid their eggs in her tangled hair, which always, inexplicably, has lollipop in it, eggs which then spawned more lice, which were then drawn to a new blood host as she relayed the adventures of Harry Potter and Hermione to her rapt, infested daughter, who also wanted cuddles.

But it’s been wonderful to confirm that so many scalps in my immediate and extended family also maintain temperatures of 82-86°F. If not for the lice, we wouldn’t have known. Now I wonder if during Covid times I should’ve circulated more, so we all could’ve learned more things about the human body.

Content of my emails to state and United States reps: “Hello. It’s me, a political wallflower who now identifies strongly as your constituent. Speaking for myself, my friends, my family, and random folks I know who work for the federal government and report literally throwing up in meetings and not sleeping for days and being tormented by decisions like, ‘Should I take the dubious buyout money or follow through on moves and house purchases and try to save the nation from within even though I’ll have no job security, or just drop out of the workforce altogether and raise chickens that will likely die from bird flu?’: Fuck.” 

And also, “Hey what’s the plan? I saw a bunch of protest fliers while doomscrolling Reddit. One of them is sending me to a parking lot next to a local Chinese buffet on Tuesday. Should I go?” 

And also, “My fed contact told me that all FBI field offices have been ordered to prioritize immigrant deportation over preventing domestic terrorism. Is that true?” 

And also, “Deploy me in your resistance. Personally I have nothing to offer you by way of valuable skills or political capital. But please deploy me. Didn’t I send you $25 once?” 

Send messages. Refresh inbox. Refresh inbox. Refresh inbox. Plan follow-up emails, not understanding why my reps don’t immediately take advantage of this direct channel I’ve created after a lifetime of zero interaction. 

If I wanted to be more strategic about it, there are probably levers I could pull, names I could drop in these emails so a staffer would flag them to a higher echelon of inbox. Unknown authors are rarely plucked from the slush pile. They need literary agents to introduce them to publishing houses, so editors know their books are worth reading. (Contributing to my perception that today’s literary world can resemble a multi-level marketing scheme, where uplines only sponsor you if you buy their books, and inevitably there will be more recruiters than readers.) 

I’m sure LLMs are busy sorting political inboxes all over America into positive and negative sentiment, summarizing and categorizing the content of each email. And I’m probably being sorted into the Time-wasting Constituent bucket because my writing never says anything an LLM would find useful, especially when it’s giving sad, scared, and/or desperate.

All I can hope is that one day, years from now, an artificial intelligence will pull a verbatim from one of my emails. And it will wind up on a multi-tabbed spreadsheet used by a political marketing research team. And an actual human eyeball will be scanning the rows and columns, and it will pause briefly on a cell containing my biggest insight from 2025 – “Fuck.” – before moving on to more actionable formulas, functions, and dollar signs.

Katrina E. Callsen
DelKCallsen@house.virginia.gov

Mark L. Warner
https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contactpage

Tim Kaine
https://www.kaine.senate.gov/contact/share-your-opinion

R. Creigh Deeds
senatordeeds@senate.virginia.gov

John McGuire
https://mcguire.house.gov/address_authentication?form=/contact/email-me

Day 1
11:17am
Her: Please please please please please please please please call me
Her: I need you to help me with jammies please
Her: Can you please answer me back because I know you’re talking with dada
Her: I’m in my creepy zone mama, so text me back and I’ll say over bloody out
Her: I do not know what I mean what you mean by my teeth are so dry

I’ve read about how scientists are using artificial intelligence to decode the language of whales, bees, and other animals. So one day the animals will be talking, and we’ll understand them all perfectly.

8:33pm
Her: I’m stuck on the toilet you can start without me
Me: Have you turned into your dad?
Her: I know it’s fun E
Her: Sorry
Her: When I was taking my long cut, I found a piece of candy on the table. Can I have it? It’s a chocolate I mean.
Me: lol that’s mine
Her: Call me please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please
Her: I brush my hair and teeth. Just please call me.
Her: I’ll do anything

Now my 8-year-old daughter has a computer on her wrist, into which she speaks her mind, and the output resembles effective communication. The Apple Watch transcribes her thoughts into correctly spelled words, and often punctuates her sentences. I hear a familiar voice in the texts, but the computer is also teaching her its use cases.

Day 2
5:41pm
Her: Hey, it’s almost 6 can we go in soon? [she texts from the back seat of the car I’m driving]
Her: I can’t feel my butt
Her: Still can’t feel my butt
Her: More minutes it’s about 553 or 552
Her: It’s 554 are we there yet
Her: Do you see that bag on the railing across from us? [she texts while we walk from the car to the restaurant]
Her: Really want the avocado with stuff inside when you when he comes around, will you order it for me or I can order it? Whatever you want. [she texts from the restaurant bathroom]
Her: I believe you

She becomes a girl with more demands, because the computer is a demanding tool. She’s learned that she can move me bodily from one room to another just by talking into her device.

9:59pm
Her: You have to
Her: #£6 e_e’ecayA
Her: Christmas tree
Her: Can I have dessert now will you come down now please please please please please

I’ve discovered that she’s very comfortable issuing threats from a safe distance.

Day 3
6:53pm
Her: Fill it up to the top, and never see a light again

I cherish the unsolicited “Love you” texts. And when she recently signed off with “I don’t wanna talk about it anymore” after I won an argument, I was mildly amused. But it’s mostly this:

Day 4
10:13am
Her: Could you please come here and help me get dressed?
Her: I need more help than that
Her: Please please please don’t block me and please please please do more than that getting dressed
Her: Please please please thank you thank you Q I’m begging you

I’m afraid there may come a time when I’ll be floating peaceably in the ocean and a whale will swim right up to me and say in American English, “Please please please please please please please I need you to help me with whale stuff please woman thank you,” and I’ll pretend not to understand.

Man and cat are sick at the same time. It’s either psychic connection or norovirus jumping species. They both puke on the rug. Only one of them has a doctor. The doctor prescribes a liquid diet. A pitbull crosses the doctor’s waiting room on a stretcher. 

Man and cat take similar medicines to feel better. They both suffer from stress. The blizzard had altered routines, concealed hunting grounds. The doctor recommends an aerosol for “enhanced serenity.” Each patient makes room on the bed for the other. They don’t go outside for a while.

Nursing staff is busy. Smooth peanut butter. Cold fresh water. Cuddles. Wet food. Dry food. Bowls to be washed. Bathroom movements to track. Heavy petting. WebMD. 

Man diagnosed cat, which saved cat’s life. Man’s diagnosis remains elusive. Not fair that one patient should recuperate faster than the other. Hot showers help relieve man’s nausea. Tongue laps puddles from the bathtub, wet paws sink into the mat. Man sweats through two blankets and a bedsheet. Cat curls up beside him, smelling of snow.

I hadn’t gone to the cemetery on Christmas Eve, and it was eating me alive. I kept postponing to the next day and the next day. It was raining. No fresh-cut lilies. No great urgency because he was dead. But I kept getting this feeling like he’d been expecting me at that particular time and place. (I always visit on Christmas Eve. It’s been our thing since he died.) So I made this tentative plan in my head to show up on New Year’s Eve.

But that day I worked late and we were due at a family dinner party. Our schedule kept getting tighter and tighter. Plus we’d had a literal thunderstorm with literal lightning. So that meant soggy graves, umbrellas, a wet and whiny daughter, tracking mud through the party, etc. I was about to postpone again when I looked out my office window and saw a double fucking rainbow. I’d known I was late, but I hadn’t realized I was double-rainbow late. I promptly shut down my work computer and got everyone in the car.

The sky was blue now. The rainbows were fading at my back, having done their job with the light. I chose tulips at the store because my mom had told me they keep growing after they’re cut.

At the cemetery, Matt said he’d stay in the car so my daughter and I could “have a moment.” He was enjoying a new tin of snack mix at the time. My sweet girl came with me to the grave, wrapped her arm around my waist for a cuddle, then let go to do the flowers. I heard the car window unroll outside the cemetery wall. “Hug her again!” Matt shouted at our daughter, pointing his phone at us from the idling car. She dutifully hugged me again for the camera.

When I was online later that night, the double rainbow was all over my local feeds, and I realized that I hadn’t thought to take a picture. Matt hadn’t either, even though he’s a photographer and we’d marveled together about how loud the colors were. But at the cemetery he’d insisted on capturing the small arc of our daughter’s arm, and the sun bouncing off our hair, as if to prove that we’d gotten the memo from above. Now I’ll always have an image of that feeling that we’re still living parallel to the dead, that the dead still know how to summon us to their sides, even though it may just be a trick of the light.

On Christmas night, I kept finding more caramel down the front of my shirt. Surprised me every time. I’d only had four fistfuls of cake. I thought they’d all made it into my mouth. And yet when I slipped off my turtleneck dickie worn in tribute to Cousin Eddie, I found a chunk of caramel frosting mashed into the bib. I thought that was the end of it, then more frosting turned up inside my shirt when I put on pajamas. And it wasn’t until the next day that I found my bra encrusted with caramel as if I’d been stuffing cake down my cleavage all night. What kind of party was this? I blame my sister.

We’d both seen the ad for the bed of nails. “Another thing to try to relax you,” I said, thinking of the probiotics and the massage guns and the neurofeedback device that sits like a crown on his head. Where does it all end? I looked at my beautiful, high-strung boy, who’s equally triggered by love and traffic. “Sold,” I told him. “I’m just going to relax you until you’re dead.”

I’ve decided to write some useful content for once. But then I’ll conclude my post with personal observations that are both foolish and pointless because that is my brand.

So here are some of the best mysteries and thrillers that helped me endure the pandemic, i.e., turn my brain off for hours at a time. I recommend taking these books to your private islands and secluded beaches this summer. There you can devour them along with the body parts of all the people you’ve dramatically murdered.

The Stack

1. Final Girls, Home Before Dark, The Last Time I Lied, and Lock Every Door by Riley Sager. These novels are twisty, terrifying (especially Home Before Dark), and driven by strong female voices. Still can’t believe Sager is a man.

2. When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole. This book just won a well-deserved Edgar Award. The story is darkly real and riveting and as a bonus Cole handles the sexy stuff like the romance ninja she is.

3. The Survivors by Jane Harper. The Dry is still my favorite by Harper, but this one made me start planning a vacation to Tasmania, which is saying something.

4. The Tenant and The Butterfly House by Katrine Engberg. The murders are just okay but I’m down with the detectives and the writing.

5. The Inspector Lynley series by Elizabeth George. SO GOOD. Read them in order. George will repeatedly break your heart, but the journey is worth it.

6. All of the Fjallbacka books by Camilla Lackberg. Lackberg is an OG with a uniquely deviant imagination.

7. The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda. Rich people, coastal vacation homes, unsolved homicides. Kind of predictable, but you read on.

8. The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton. Needlessly complex at times, but super interesting if you like wooden ships and the supernatural. Couldn’t get through Turton’s other elaborate mystery, The 7.5 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, because I’m too basic.

9. Theo Cray and Jessica Blackwood and Underwater Investigation novels by Andrew Mayne. I think Mayne was the first author I binged via Kindle Unlimited. Mayne is an honest-to-god magician who dives with sharks and writes all these books about serial killers just so he can give every antihero a happy ending.

10. The Dublin Trilogy (actually four novels) by Caimh McDonnell. These “darkly comic crime thrillers” are just fun. Sharp writing and lovable, over-the-top characters.

11. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

12. The Trap by Melanie Raabe

13. The Magpies by Mark Edwards

14. Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay

15. Proving Ground by Peter Blauner

16. The Red Lotus by Peter Bohjalian

17. The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis

I’ve also read a lot of mysteries that were meh. I could put them in a listicle as well, but I’m trying to offer quality content today.

Meh Things I’ve Read and Said During the Pandemic

is a headline that would be followed by a billion boring things. Like for instance I’m between mystery books right now so I just read an entire bathing suit catalog marketed to women who have birthed children. In the catalog photos the sea breeze catches the hems of the models’ tie-dyed sarongs and maxi dresses and their bikini tops peek out flirtatiously from under their ombre macrame crossbody blouses and their strappy sandals sink into the wet sand and the ocean sparkles behind them and I’m just flipping the pages thinking, “It’s only a matter of time before your naked bodies are found creatively arranged in dumpsters and only a psychologically damaged FBI profiler with a secret past can figure out why.”

When my daughter finally returned to preschool last week, her teacher asked her to tell the class about her family. She said, “My dada works at a knife company and my mom likes to shop.” Thank you, Pandemic Year, for blessing me with the opportunity to show my impressionable young daughter all that a woman is capable of being.

I do, in fact, buy a lot of stuff. It’s mostly food and medicine, with some frequency. I don’t collect records. I don’t care for expensive electronics. Coffee is good, bought in bulk when on sale. If I get a fungus on one of my more prominent toes, I will splurge on some generic ointment from CVS. And that’s about it except for my Goodwill habit, which sees me buying used clothes and storybooks every other week for my daughter. But I didn’t set foot in a Goodwill until I was vaccinated. Then I went nuts, spending $5 on one visit, $3 on another, always rounding up to help “fund job training” even though we all have our suspicions. Our house contains a lot of old plastic toys with the price stickers still on them, which will save Goodwill employees time when I disappear the toys back to the donation center while my daughter is at preschool.

Right now I’m shopping for a job. I’ve had a few interviews and they all go the same way. 1) I put on lipstick. 2) I babble into my computer for 30 minutes with the expectation that the hiring manager or VP or whoever will find me so charming and human and real that they’ll hire me on the spot. 3) I don’t get hired. 4) I remember that I am now 40, devoid of youthful charm, and I didn’t go to personal branding college, and being a human is not actually a qualification. It’s like, the lowest bar. Lower than a machine. Lower than a fungus. But you also risk “underselling” yourself if you begin an interview confessing that you are lower than a fungus.

And yet you only have to get hired one time, by one company, and then you’re suddenly Employable and Professional again and people like your 4-year-old daughter can respect you. I imagine it’s a transformative experience. Probably really good for one’s self-esteem.

Interview Tips

1. Don’t say the first thing that pops into your head. You are not blogging.
2. Don’t lead with your greatest weakness, like that you have a Goodwill shopping addiction, or that you’re a loser.
3. You can try to be funny for precisely 28 seconds, then you need to talk about your marketing experience.
4. Stop taking nervous sips of iced coffee from your Yeti thermos because they’ll assume there’s vodka in it and come to think of it you’re acting drunk.
5. Don’t cling to your daughter when you pick her up from school as if your entire identity depends on her.
6. Don’t lose career momentum during a once-in-a-century pandemic.