Really Good, Actually

by Monica Heisey

I was always amazed at how lightly Amirah wore the day-to-day heaviness of her work, how she could go into the hospital and deliver difficult news to parents or help children manage pain they would be dealing with for their entire lives, then come to dinner and listen to the rest of us complain about bad email etiquette.

I spent distracted time with the self-help authors, agreeing furiously with whatever was in front of me and forgetting it moments

My politics are leftist, which so far has mostly meant that I sign a lot of petitions and donate small amounts of money to people who are working harder than me at solving the Problems or go to protests and attempt to stand in solidarity with people the Problems are happening to.

He finished his beer and said, ‘I spend a lot of time worrying that I’m fundamentally a worse person than I thought I was. How can you tell if something you did was a stupid mistake or a real sign of your character?’

I asked what traits made up a Gemini. She told me they were ‘the real psychos of the zodiac’.

‘When things are shaky and nothing is working, we might realise that we are on the verge of something.’

‘Alright,’ I said. ‘I’m angry that my threshold for discomfort is so low. Like I can function totally normally as long as there is no uncertainty in my life, but if I’m waiting to learn the outcome of something, the entire day is fucked.’

Blake shouted at someone called TheRealSpinShady: ‘I’m sorry, but you do not pun in my class and then coast during a climb! Up that resistance or get out of here, babe!’ Blake consulted the laptop next to their bike.