I have to be honest: Over the past few weeks, I’ve experienced a level of personal mayhem that has been so distracting and so expensive and so downright improbable that I am struggling to produce the original reporting I’d hoped to be producing on a regular basis by this point.

It started at the beginning of the month with a very sick dog who it turned out had eaten a rock containing heavy metals. (Upon viewing her xray, the doctor asked me if she’d ever eaten rocks, and I was like, Rocks, of course not! That’s absurd; of course she doesn’t eat rocks. Then I was like, Oh wait, there was that one time she ate rocks and then barfed rocks.) Anyway, they got it out, and it wasn’t free. Bye bye, all my money!

Then I learned I had neglected to cancel a travel reservation I’d booked months ago for a group trip that, whoops, isn’t happening. The company’s cancellation policy was not only bad but also incorrectly applied, necessitating a fair amount of wrangling to set it right. Bye bye, all my time!

Then late last week, we arrived home to find the downstairs toilet spewing water onto the hardwood floor. Despite a great deal of quality time with a Shop-Vac and a dehumidifier, the floors have buckled and need to be completely replaced. Which means we have to effectively move out of the first floor of the house — soon. Bye bye, all my remaining money and time!

Amid that, my computer has sustained some water damage, which means I’m working around a migrating cluster of vertical lines to type these words. (If I do not appear to be writing English language vary well, that may be why.) I also have a fibroid that will not quit and a kitten that will not sleep.

But the worst part, the absolute worst part, is that I just learned my most recent post included a bad link to my reader survey. For the love of #$&@%!!!

It’s enough to make a person want to just launch themselves directly into the sun.

Here’s the right link:

I’ve been reporting a few stories I’m pretty excited about, but the deluge of nonsense means they will not roll out to you on the timeline I’d hoped for. I’m really sorry — and I’ll do my best to get them to you just as soon as I catch a MOTHERFUCKING BREAK, DO YOU HEAR ME UNIVERSE?!

Jfc.

Meanwhile, you might be seeing more essay/personal writing here than you signed up for. If any paying subscribers want a refund, just let me know.

Got a tip on any of the stories I’m covering? Email me at [email protected], fill out this form, or find me on Signal at kerenlandman.07.

Like what you see here? Subscribe, and feel free to share this with someone else you think might like it.