Gerald Has Opinions

April twelfth.

I moved Gerald about three inches to the left this morning, just to wipe down the shelf, nothing dramatic, and when I set him back I set him in the wrong spot by about half an inch and then spent the next four minutes adjusting the pot by degrees and checking the trailing vine to see if it looked right, and at some point in there I said out loud, 'Is that better?'

He did not answer. But I waited a beat anyway. That's the part I can't explain.

I've had the collapsed bowl on that shelf since September 2017. I repotted Gerald into the stoneware pot that same month. Which means we have been doing this small domestic negotiation, Gerald, the bowl, the afternoon light, the order of things on the shelf, for about a year and a half. You'd think I'd have learned the correct coordinates by now. You would be wrong.

Another moment

Some mornings the apartment is just the apartment. And then some mornings I am standing in bare feet at eight-fifteen apologizing to a plant for the half-inch. I laughed at myself for long enough that I had to put the sponge down. That felt like a reasonable thing to document.

Another moment