Usually I wake up just before 6 am with Brendan next to me and I’m drenched in sweat. If you’ve ever shared the bed with a large man who runs hot, you know what I mean. He’s like a radiator. It doesn’t help that Brendan wants to be cuddling me at all times so I have to peel myself out of his grip so I can lean over to the side of the bed and chug water.

“I had a dream and you were in it,” Brendan says and then proceeds to tell me a useless story about the dream he had and I patiently wait for the part where yours truly comes in.

He finishes the story and I say, “Oh my god,” because truthfully I was only half listening. Brendan usually has a workout class around 7 am so we have a little bit of time before he needs to leave. He likes to make out like a teenager in the mornings (I’d rather not) which sometimes leads to more. On this particular morning Brendan has a boner and really wants me to know, but I ignore it because I don’t feel like doing anything.

Brendan gets up and leaves at 6:45 to go to his workout class and I shower, put on cargo pants, a cashmere cardigan and cap toe slingbacks by Veronica Beard.

I finally drag Winnie out of bed at 7:30 am. She now hates wake up time and has to be forced awake like a preteen. It takes her a full 15 minutes to get up and even after that, I help brush her teeth and brush her hair while her eyes are closed. Today my child is wearing a flouncy spring dress suitable for an extravagant birthday or tea party, leggings, and white cowgirl boots. She picked it out herself and has to be seen wearing it so I don’t care. We leave the house at 8:15 for the short walk to Winnie’s school. She prefers to eat breakfast at school with her friends and she has various snacks packed in her backpack.

After I drop Winnie off, I head back to my apartment to meet Brendan, who is going to drive me the few blocks to the office. It’ll be so much easier once we live together, but I love our additional time together in the mornings. On the drive, Brendan usually plays music by some New York based rapper and tells me his relationship to the album/song. Brendan is a big east coast rap/hip hop buff if you didn’t know.

He’s like, “This is from Jay-Z’s 6th album and it came out on September 11, 2001. It’s the only album I listened to for 3 years.”

And, “Kendall and I used to sit in Washington Square Park and listen to this Wu-Tang album on loop.”

Adorable.

I’m like, “Speaking of music geniuses. Not a lot of people know this, but Paris Hilton came out with an album in 2006 and it’s a certified banger!”

I arrive at the office just before 9:30 am. I work in a large building with 40+ floors and lots of different companies so people watching in the lobby is always fun. And the morning door guy, Marc, is in love with me. He had the nerve to ask me out once (even though I’m sure he’s seen me with Brendan before) and I was taken aback and offended that he thought he even had a chance with me. Where do straight men always find this audacity? He’s like 60 years old and always tells me about his college-aged daughter and his other various offspring and I don’t know, what made him think to ask me out? What have I done to make him think that I was interested? So now I’m polite, but short and he always finds an excuse to chat with me longer. He’s like, “We have an extra copy of the paper. Do you want to take it?” or “I have a free lunch coupon from the restaurant down the block. Why don’t you take it and have lunch on me? 😉”

There’s a bunch of hot men in suits walking in at the same time as me on this particular morning and Marc makes a big show of shouting, “There she is!” and then fist bumps me so they all know that we are close.

I get upstairs to my computer and do all of my morning checks: email, outstanding invoices, outstanding shipments, Instagram. Some chatty coworkers stop by to say hello, but I’m mostly left alone.

Mike arrives just after 10 am and I can tell by the way he let the entrance door shut that his energy is off and he’s in a bad mood. So I will not be speaking to him until he speaks to me.

I get through all of my emails, leaving the ones I’m not ready to reply to unopened. I’ve found out that there are some really strange people on this planet who have read receipts on their emails and they will not be ashamed to call you out for opening it and not responding, and I’m just not ready for that kind of drama today.

I take a break to go down the hall to chat with a 21 year old intern named — get this: Hayley —  who is the most Gen Z person I know. She speaks exclusively in TikTok slang (brainrot), but I like her. She shows all signs of being an iPad baby. We’re into similar things; we just have different reference points. For example, we’re both into iconic pop girlies. For me, it’s: Beyoncé, Rihanna, Ariana Grande, Gaga, etc. Whereas Hayley prefers Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo and Lana del Rey (to be fair, I think Lana is more my gen, but still). But one of the most interesting things about Hayley is how influenced she is to buy things. Anytime she makes a purchase, it’s because someone on TikTok told her to. For example, she saw some influencer talking about Kourtney K’s Lemme gummy vitamins and she immediately went to the website and ordered the entire collection without doing any additional research and expected it to change her life! She’s not even familiar with Kourtney as a Kardashian/Barker/celebrity and it’s just so fascinating to me from a marketing perspective how she doesn’t ever find products on her own organically and just buys whatever social media tells her to. So I guess I like to go chat with Hayley when I want to remember how much good life I’ve lived.

I can feel myself being watched and I glance down the hall to see Mike standing outside my office, staring at me.

“K, gotta go,” I sigh.

“Mmkay, talk to ya later bestie!” Hayley sings.

Mike follows me into my office and says, “Please explain to me [these concepts that we’ve already discussed at length]. I’m not understanding.”

So I patiently explain it to him again like he’s 5 and address all of the concerns we’ve already addressed. I wouldn’t even mind Mike not paying attention or retaining anything we discuss, but he’s always such an asshole about it. Sometimes I’m bitchy back, but it’s usually not worth the trouble.

Brendan texts me to tell me that he ordered salads for his office and asks if I want one. Since I have not yet eaten today, I take him up on his offer. I don’t particularly want a salad and would much prefer a slice of lemon pound cake from Starbucks, but beggars can’t be choosers. I eat all of the good bits from my salad and leave a bed of dry kale and quinoa in the refrigerator that I pretend I’m going to eat later. Then I make my first caffeinated beverage of the day: a refresher made of one part kiwi guava Celsius, one part orange juice and a splash of filtered water to cut the sweetness.

The next few hours I’m on calls with partners: some for status check-ins, some to try to pitch us additional services, or some just to just annoy me specifically.

Mike leaves at 3, but claims he will be online later. That’s fine but I won’t be. With Mike gone, I take a siesta until 3:45 when I have a couple more calls. And then at 4:20 I need to rush out for the day to pick up my baby angel from school! She has her dance class at 5 so I quickly scoop her up and we head a few blocks to her class. Winnie loves school and all of her friends. She’s still besties with Olivia, but each day she comes home mad at one of the others about something. Usually it’s because Beatrice painted her paper the same color as Winnie’s or another friend chose Nyla over her as a partner. You know how Winnie is. I usually try to talk her through it as much as I can, but mostly just tune in for the dramz.

Winnie’s class is only 45 minutes which is good because she has the attention span of a fruit fly. She’s finally getting better about focusing and not being distracted by everything and everyone around her. And honestly, when she puts her mind to it, she’s one of the better dancers in class too! I’ll let her make the decision if she wants to keep up with it in the fall when she starts school, but I’m glad she is enjoying it for now.

There’s a dance mom I hate. Her name is Nadine and she just turned 40. She has really terrible main character syndrome which on its own is fine, but everything that comes out of her mouth is homophobic, transphobic, racist, ableist, misogynistic or otherwise problematic in some way. Obviously I stay away from her because I don’t want that energy around me, but she always drags me into conversations and then tries to humiliate me in some way. Usually she asks me a question that I don’t know the answer to or don’t have an opinion on since I’m not a native New Yorker, and then scream-laughs and tells everyone when I don’t give her the answer she’s looking for. She also has a really bad nose job.

After class, Winnie and I walk or take a car back to the apartment and that’s typically when Brendan calls. If we don’t have prior plans, he wants to know if we want to have dinner together and then we discuss if he should come over and cook for us (another thing I love about Brendan is he is so resourceful. I’m like, “The only groceries I have on hand is one dozen eggs, a single chicken breast (frozen) and a handful of fresh broccoli” and he will come over and whip up a 5 star meal). The answer is always yes and on this particular evening, he says he’s stopping to get sushi (Winnie loves a California roll) and bringing it over so we can all have dinner together. Winnie and I change and get ready for our man to show up.

“Winnie has something to tell you,” I announce once he’s arrived.

“Oh yeah? What is it?” Brendan says back.

Winnie proceeds into an absolutely disgusting story about their classroom lizard and how it eats beetles and bugs, and today it was her turn to dump the little container of beetles into the lizard cage. I’ve already heard the story once and I stand in a corner covering my ears and gagging which Winnie thinks is hilarious.

After dinner, Winnie has approximately an hour and a half before it’s her bedtime and you better believe she makes the most of it. We either watch a movie or she plays games on her iPad or the three of us play some sort of hide and seek game where Winnie makes up arbitrary rules as we go along.

Okay, I want to point something out and I’m not saying this to be petty — it’s merely an observation — but Winnie rarely brings up her dad during the week. After she started school full time and they don’t spend all day on Mondays together, I feel like their relationship has completely changed and it’s kind of sad. She used to be so obsessed with Brady. Sometimes I ask if she wants to FaceTime him in the evening and she used to think about it before saying no and now she just says no. I know that she still enjoys going over to Brady’s house to spend time with him and she stayed there for an entire week last month and had so much fun that she didn’t want to come home. But it’s still turning out exactly how I feared. I guess Brady and Caroline will be taking a trip for an entire month later this summer and I’m hoping Winnie doesn’t forget about him during that time.

After Winnie goes to bed, Brendan and I stay up talking and drinking wine or putting on comfy clothes and getting in bed. Super chill vibes. Lately he’s been asking me about the future and what I want; like if I want to stay working for Mike or if I want to venture out and do something else eventually and have I ever considered working for myself? Brendan went to business school and studied entrepreneurship so he’s always thinking about starting a business. I’m like, “Yeah I don’t know, we’ll see.” I complain about work a lot (doesn’t everyone?), but I’m fine for now. It pays me well and I like what I do. When I think about the future, I’m wondering if I want another baby eventually or not. I mean, I guess I do and I know Brendan wants a kid or two of his own, but he always says “in a few years.” But like, when? I’m already on the fence about having another kid and I feel like if I wait too long, I’ll be completely over it.

Anyway, either Brendan and I fall asleep at 9:30 or stay up all night having sex and then we wake up the next day to do it all over again!