Summarise March 2026 for me. What happened?

march first. rent went out this morning and there's 212 dollars and 40 cents in checking.

I made the list. the shape of it is: one client owes me eighteen hundred dollars and is sixteen days late, and everything this month depends on a man named Trevor opening an email.

I've been here before. I was here in 2021 and 2023. the difference is I used to not look. I'd find out what was in the account when the card got declined at the co-op. now I look, and looking is worse for about an hour and then better.

things that are true tonight: the rent is paid. there's rice. there's 600 in savings that belongs to the IRS and I'm not touching it. Miso is asleep on the radiator cover with one leg hanging off. the Burr Oak cheque is coming.

the car is dead. not cold-dead. dead dead. the battery light came on yesterday on Lake Street and I looked at it and decided it was a suggestion.

Gerald with the cables again. it ran for two minutes and quit at the corner with the hazards blinking slower and slower like something going to sleep.

tow truck. 95 dollars in cash that I had in the drawer for groceries. the driver was called Dub and had a small dog in the cab in a sweater.

Hamza thinks alternator. he'll know tomorrow. he patted the hood like a horse.

I walked from his shop to mine in the slush, forty minutes, and was late, and Ines looked at my boots and handed me a coffee without a word.

one good thing: Kettlebird paid for the phoebe today. 450. Rashid and his phone. it's enough to make the tow not have happened.

alternator. 486.28. picked it up yesterday and put it on the card and drove home with every dash light off, which was eerie.

today I asked Walt for more hours. I'd practiced it on the ride in. I said "I had a car thing and a client's late and I could use whatever you've got." he didn't do the face I was afraid of. he said "saturdays through april, sundays once it's warm, and I need two days of box builds." and then: "you should've said something in january."

I don't know why that's the part that got me. I went and stood in the bathroom for a minute.

I think I believed that if I asked, I'd be the guy who asks. he's known me five years. I'm the guy who alphabetized his spoke drawer.

thirty extra hours this month.

I thought I was going to lose her today.

she started throwing up at midnight. four times by six. by the last one it was just foam, and she went and lay on the bathroom tile, flat, which she never does, and when I put her breakfast down she looked at it and looked at me.

I called the vet at 8:01. I gave her the gabapentin in my fingers because she wouldn't take the spoon. she didn't make a sound in the carrier the whole drive. I'd have given anything for the screaming.

it's something small in her stomach, a hair tie probably. not stuck. they gave her a shot and fluids and sent us home to wait for it.

312 dollars and 45 cents. I handed over the card without looking at the screen. there's a kind of money that isn't a decision.

she's on the bed now with a lump of water on her shoulders, asleep. I've been lying next to her with my hand on her side counting her breathing. twenty-two a minute. the vet said under thirty is fine.

two things came out today.

one: the hair tie. this morning, in the litter box, intact. black, elastic, not mine. it's June's. it has been somewhere in this apartment since november, under a radiator, waiting. I put it in a bag and then I put the bag in the outside bin. Miso ate a full dinner and attacked the bathmat.

two: the email. Trevor texted last night that they could pay "end of Q2," which is june, for work he's been using since january. I wrote a reply at seven this morning and it was four paragraphs of apology with a request hidden in it. Sam and Priya both read it. Priya took out "I'm sorry to be like this." Sam took out "I hope you understand." what was left was: you owe me, here's the date, and until you pay you don't have the right to use the drawings.

I sent it at 10:02 and then cleaned the entire apartment.

I've never written an email like that. I kept thinking of Jiichan not taking money from the man whose wife was sick.

worked ten to five, first extra saturday. built four kids' bikes out of boxes. it's good work for a tired head, everything goes in one order.

Dez came over after with a pie because it's the 14th and he's that person. sour cherry, lard crust. we ate half of it standing up.

I told him the month. all of it, the numbers. I don't usually. he listened with his arms crossed like he does at the pass, and then took out his phone and said "I'm sending you five hundred." I said no. he said it's not a loan. I said that's worse. we went around like that for a while.

what I finally said was: if I take it I'll feel it every time I see you, and you're the person I don't feel things like that with. he put the phone away. he said "fine. then you owe me dinner when the fish guy pays, and I'm ordering the goat."

then he said, and he's said it before as a joke: "or just live with me. my lease is up in november. two bedrooms costs less than two apartments. I'd cook. you'd fix my bike. the cat would run the place." this time I don't think it was a joke.

I said I have a bay window. he said "you have a bay window and 212 dollars."

of all the days. the renewal letter from Gail was in the mailbox. rent goes to 1,150 in june. fifty-five more a month.

it's not a lot. it's the correct amount to be the thing that does it. I sat on the stairs with my coat on and the letter in my hand and Gerald started his scales underneath me and I just listened to the whole thing, scales and then the real song, which today was "Danny Boy" because of the date.

she wrote at the bottom that she held it as low as she could. I believe her. she's raised it less in two years than Corbel did in one.

I need to decide by april first. I'm going to look at what's out there, properly, with numbers, so that if I stay it's because I chose to and not because moving is hard.

the street is loud tonight. green hats. somebody is singing under the bay window, badly, and Miso is at the glass with her ears flat.

looked at listings last night for two hours. I'm staying. the math isn't close. the bay window is worth 55 dollars. so is Gerald.

mom called this afternoon, out of nowhere, on a thursday. Hana had told her about the cat, which means Hana had told her about the car, which means everyone knows the whole month. mom said "your father and I would like to help" in the voice she uses for parents at the library desk. I said I'm ok, I've got extra shifts, the client's going to pay. she said "I know you're ok. that's not why people help."

I said no anyway. I don't fully know why. I'm 27 and they're near retiring and dad just had a knee done. but also I think I wanted this month to be something I got through.

Hana called ten minutes later. "just take it, you idiot." I said no. she said "fine," hung up, and sent me a hundred dollars with the note "for my niece's hair tie. non-refundable. love, the aunt."

28.

I didn't want to do anything and they made me. pho, the four of us. Lu, Dez, Priya. they'd agreed beforehand that I wasn't allowed to look at the bill.

Priya's present is a print of my own bay window with a tiny Miso in it. Dez's is chili crisp. Lu's is a spoke wrench. Hana's box had a photograph I'd never seen: Jiichan in 1988 at the workbench, fifty-two years old, soldering iron in his hand, looking up at the camera, annoyed. he looks like me. I've never thought that before. it's the being interrupted.

Obaachan on the phone: "28. your grandfather was married at 26." and then she laughed so long that mom took the phone.

walked home on my own along Lake Street. it was almost warm, 40, and the snowbanks have that black lace on them. I was thinking about last birthday, a month after the funeral, when I felt twelve. tonight I felt about 28.

nothing's fixed. Trevor hasn't answered. I owe the card two thousand dollars.

Odette called at eleven this morning. I was at the desk doing nothing, moving a pencil around.

Pilcrow & Pine wants me to illustrate a picture book. a whole one. thirty-two pages. it's called Grandfather Heron Counts the Ice.

I made her say the title twice.

it's about a girl and her grandfather waiting every spring for the ice to go off a lake, and he writes the date in a notebook every year, and there's a heron. I said, on the phone, to an art director, "my grandfather counted things." and she said "I know. I read your zine. that's why I'm calling you."

8,500 dollars. I wrote the number on the back of my hand while she was talking and it's still there.

I've been walking around the apartment since. I called Hana and couldn't talk and she said "is it the cat" and I said "no, it's good, it's good" and then she was crying and didn't know why yet.

I haven't told Obaachan. I want to tell her on sunday, on the landline, properly.

Loomfish paid. 4:31 this afternoon, on the deadline I gave, to the minute almost, like he'd set an alarm. eighteen hundred dollars. no message.

I was at the shop with my hands in a bottom bracket and my phone buzzed on the bench and I saw the number on the lock screen. Lu saw my face and said "fish guy?" and I nodded and she rang the bell we ring for a bike sale.

forty-one days late. I'm not adding the late fee. Sam says I should. I think I got what I needed, which wasn't the 27 dollars. it was finding out that I can write that email and the sky stays up.

moved a quarter of it to the tax bucket before I could think. paid the electric and the loan. bought groceries that weren't lentils. texted Dez: "the goat. saturday."

the contract from Odette is on the desk with Sam's pencil marks on it. signing saturday morning.

signed it. ten o'clock this morning, at Pilcrow's office in St Paul, third floor, at a table with a jar of pencils on it. Odette signed after me. she said "welcome to books" and gave me my copy in a folder and a cup of very bad coffee.

Walt gave me the morning. I got to the shop at one and Ines had written on the repair board, in the customer column, "THEO — picture book — due nov 20 — no rush lol."

took Dez for the goat. he had two plates. I told him about the heron and he didn't say anything clever, he just put his fork down and looked at me, and then he said "he'd have asked how many pages."

last day of march. I want to write this one down whole, because I know I'll round it off later into "that rough month before the book."

on the first I had 212 dollars and a list. the list said: if one man pays me, I'm fine.

on the third the car died, and it wasn't the battery, it was the alternator, and it was 95 for the tow and 486 for the part. I walked to work in slush. Kettlebird paid 450 the same afternoon and it was already gone.

on the sixth I asked Walt for hours and he gave them to me and said I should have asked in january.

on the tenth Miso stopped eating. I lay on the bed and counted her breaths. 312 dollars. two days later the hair tie came out, and it wasn't even mine.

on the twelfth I sent the first email of my life that didn't apologize.

on the fourteenth Dez tried to give me five hundred dollars and I wouldn't take it, and he asked me, not as a joke, to live with him next winter.

on the seventeenth the rent went up. on the nineteenth I said no to my mother and my sister sent me a hundred dollars I couldn't refuse.

on the twenty-second I turned 28 and my friends wouldn't let me see the bill.

on the twenty-fourth Odette called.

on the twenty-sixth, at 4:31 in the afternoon, Trevor paid.

on the twenty-eighth I signed a contract to illustrate a book about a grandfather who counts the days until the ice goes out.

yesterday I signed the lease again and dropped it in Gail's box in the basement. 1,150 from june. I walked back up the stairs and Gerald was playing something slow.

the numbers say I'm worse off. the card went from thirteen hundred to twenty-one hundred. I spent eleven hundred dollars I didn't plan to. the book money comes in three pieces and the first one isn't here yet.

the car runs. the cat is asleep on the radiator.

I keep trying to be calm about the book. I can't. somebody read eight pages I made about my grandfather, without knowing they were about my grandfather, and thought: that person should draw this.

I told Obaachan on sunday. the landline. I said it's a book about a grandfather who counts. she was quiet, and then she said "how many pages," and I said thirty-two.

it's raining. first rain of the year, not snow.

march 1. the list.
checking: 212.40 after rent cleared
savings: 1,310, of which 600 is the april tax payment and I am NOT touching it
card: 1,340
OWED TO ME
- Loomfish 1,800. invoice 2026-002, sent 1/14, due 2/13. SIXTEEN days late. three emails, one "looking into it!"
- Kettlebird 450 (the spring bird), sent friday, they pay in days
- Burr Oak 900, sent 2/12, due mid-march
COMING DUE
- loan 187 on the 9th
- insurance 89 on the 12th
- Deb 240 when she files
- electric ~40
- the domain + website renewals, 18 + 192, both in march
shop: 2 shifts a week till april
so: if Loomfish pays this week I'm fine. if not it's the card.

car won't start. clicks, dash dim. battery light was on yesterday
Gerald jumped it, ran 2 min, died at the corner
Polar Star Towing 612-555-0103, $95 flat under 5 miles. paid cash
at Lake & Lantern by 10. Hamza: alternator, almost sure
3/4: alternator. 486.28 all in, battery charged + tested, ok for now
3/5: picked up. on the card. odometer 150,944. 12 month / 12k warranty, paper's in the glovebox

MISO. threw up 4x between midnight and 6. clear, then foam. didn't touch breakfast.
called Sevenpaws at 8:01. in at 9:40. gave the gabapentin anyway
Dr. Deshmukh: belly a little tender. x-ray (2 views): a small curled thing in the stomach, "consistent w/ a hair tie or a rubber band." not blocking anything. no surgery unless it gets stuck
did: anti-nausea injection, fluids under the skin
home instructions:
- nothing by mouth till 4pm, then 1 tablespoon of the bland prescription food (it's CHICKEN-FREE, I checked twice, it's the turkey + rice one)
- small meals x4 a day for 3 days
- watch the litter box for the thing
- back IMMEDIATELY if: vomiting again, not eating by tomorrow night, no poop in 48 hrs, hiding + hunched
- recheck x-ray friday if nothing's appeared
312.45. card.
3/11: ate. yelled at 5am
3/12: it appeared. black hair tie. not mine

draft. Sam + Priya both read it. sent 10:02am.

Subject: Invoice 2026-002, 27 days past due

Trevor,

Invoice 2026-002 for $1,800 was due on February 13. It's now March 12. I delivered the work on January 13, a day early, plus two extra icons you asked for at the last minute, and you've been using all fourteen publicly since January 16.

I understand cash can be tight at a young company. It is also tight at mine, which is one person. End of Q2 is not something I can accept for work that was delivered and in use two months ago.

Please pay the invoice in full by Thursday, March 26.

To be plain about where things stand: our agreement was payment for the right to use the illustrations. Until the invoice is paid, Loomfish doesn't have a license to use them, in the app or in marketing. If I haven't received payment by the 26th I'll ask you to take them down, and I'll add the 1.5% monthly late fee that's printed on the invoice.

I'd much rather just be paid and wish you well with the launch. Bank transfer details are on the invoice. If a card is easier, tell me and I'll send a link today.

Theo Nakagawa-Reed

(Priya's edit: took out "I'm sorry to be like this." Sam's edit: took out "I hope you understand.")

ODETTE CALLED. writing fast.
Pilcrow & Pine is doing a PICTURE BOOK, their second ever, and she wants me to illustrate it. whole thing. 32 pages.
- title: Grandfather Heron Counts the Ice. author Liesl Aamodt, retired teacher from up north, first book
- it's about a girl and her grandfather who watch a lake every spring for the day the ice goes out. he keeps a notebook of the dates. there's a heron that comes back the same week every year
- (I said "my grandfather counted things" out loud, on a work call, and she was quiet and then said "I know. I read your zine. that's why I'm calling you.")
- fee: 8,500. three payments: 2,500 on signing, 3,000 when sketches are approved, 3,000 on final art
- plus a royalty after the first printing sells, she'll put the number in the contract
- schedule: sketches mid-june, final art nov 20, book out fall 2027
- she knows I haven't done a book. "you've done eleven things for me and been late on none"
- contract coming tomorrow. she said take it to someone before signing. I'm taking it to Sam
I said yes on the phone and then said "I mean, I'd like to see the contract" and she laughed