stormy weather

 i woke up yesterday morning with my back still hurting - particularly, a band of pain around the middle of my trunk whenever i breathe deeply. it's still happening now, though considerably less.

gd (who'd decided her jaw pain could wait) and i enjoyed a slow morning, and then we headed south the florentin and the levinski market looking for a nice place for a coffee date. we didn't find what we were looking for, and gd became distressed about all the market people and vibes, so we cut across to cafe barzilay.

i returned to the table after ordering to find gd upset, she handed me the phone and mr smear informed me how seriously he FAed at school - both in being defiant, and then following that up by lying about having seen the principal - and it looks like he's about to FO.

at least he told us before his teacher got hold of me...

so that fucked up our weekend vibe. we have a meeting with the principal tomorrow, and we have no idea how we can defend him (or even whether we should).

so yesterday was pretty shit. i mean, he seemed reasonably contrite, and he did finally catch up with his homework, but it was pretty shit.

on the plus side, without screen time he dove into building the lego monster book of monsters kit that the mongoose had bought him, so that was cool.

dinner went smoothly, but the evening fell apart when i responded inappropriately to gd sharing her feelings (like a man, i tried to be helpful instead of just listening and nodding my head), we had a massive, exhausting fight and i woke up this morning still feeling emotionally drained.

although i spent most of today reading - including continuing to read the ocean at the end of the lane at mr smear's request, and getting him into alice in sunderland, and getting through most of the complete ballad of halo jones, and winning a blake stake balatro run, and getting back from a not-unpleasant 8km walk dropping mr smear off at a friend (which means we both got exercise and fresh air and didn't get caught in the rain) - the day's still pretty shit.

gods help this kid get his shit together. PLEASE.