Today, out of nowhere, Maggie plugged her hose into our wall so water coursed down the rickety carport wall and ran through our carport down the alley. She’s done this before–the last time led to her second hospital stay. She’s going crazier and looking for a target… and here we are! Ta-da! We are so convenient! Couldn’t she one day just look up the block at her neighbor on the other side? But they are all renters and are not invested.

Her favorite insult to me is to call Daisy autistic. She said, “You’re just angry that Daisy is autistic.”

Immediately I want to trash her daughter, who does not live with her. Oh, the things I could say about that unhappy girl who has to bear the burden of her malicious, deranged mother. but that is where my mind goes as soon as she brings up Daisy.

I said, “Daisy is a joy. Your daughter can’t even live with you.” I wanted to go super mean, super hard, but that poor kid has had enough trouble then gratuitous insults from me. How do you negotiate the world when your mother is a monster of spitefulness who lives to fight with people? How did the family end up here, with this nasty lady squatting in a 3-story house all by herself.

I ultimately called her a loser and a Republican, because it’s the worst thing I could think of. Then Calvin scolded me for losing my temper.

We did not call 911 or 311. I don’t want to deal with her today. I want to write my thing about the placebo effect and hopefully go to early vote at the Museum of the Moving Image (my fake name for this place is: The Institute for the Study of Film and TV (ISFT, which is not catchy at all). I’m getting tired of finding fake names.

Calvin doesn’t want me to go nuts on poor crazy Maggie. He says we have to stay calm and she goes crazy, but I have not arrived at that spot in my evolution of the self. He just came back to my office and informed me that we are not victims. We are being victimized by Maggie but we–me, Wyatt, Daisy and Calvin–are not victims.

But still, my fake family names bring me joy, the family I dreamed of, although my crush on Calvin had pretty much dissipated by third grade. But I always enjoyed Calvin, and his hilarious son Clay who introduced Daisy and me to his giant pig.