1 Choose a tray—red, orange, green, or blue. Notice the scratches. Grab a plastic plate, a napkin, silverware still warm. 

This week, Tina gets her own phone.

There has been a lot going on.

JJ’s reptile menagerie has been rapidly expanding, which Tina (JJ’s mom) aids and abets because she continually hangs from the grim cliff of knowing that trans kids easily get depressed.

I step up to the counter at the café to order. The young man behind the counter says with cheer, What can I get you this morning, Sir? Just a normal day. An “every single day.”

Sydney Lea speaks with Susan Conley

The icy morning finds me in bed, engrossed in a book of John Singer Sargent’s watercolors. The thought of staying under the covers all but overwhelms me.

In Dubai, we are not allowed to gather in protest. We are not allowed to display a foreign flag, so two weeks after the fighting begins, my children and I cover our front door instead with slices of construction paper watermelon.