I made a yellow cake for CSA Supperclub tonight. It’s a cake out of a box and I’m kind of afraid it didn’t rise properly. I cannot remember the last time I made a cake so I don’t know what they’re supposed to look like in the pan. This one looks a little sad and flat, but it smells divine.

I’m listening to Beth Orton’s “Concrete Sky” on repeat. A song I’d forgotten I loved. It reminds me of my shitty apartment in Prior Lake, smoking cigarettes, and typing at the dining room table I used as a desk on a computer that had to be plugged into various walls. I made this here website on that computer. I believe I called it Oberon.

As I listened to “Concrete Sky” and smelled the cake and vaguely thought about Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, there was a slight easing in my chest, a feeling like that first bite into a peanut M&M, where you feel the candy shell break between your teeth. It’s a small crack in the unrelenting sadness I’ve been carrying around with me for weeks.

If I hadn’t cried so much lately, I would cry with relief.