she begins by getting the thing out of the insane amounts of plastic wrapping, then wrangles its trunk into the tree stand, then assesses whether it is standing straight while somehow keeping it from either tipping over or eating her hair, then screws in the metal thingies. pauses after momentous completion of aforementioned tasks to appreciate her weirdly long and useful arms. next she finds the fairy lights, smiles at the martha-like forethought she had to so neatly wind them last year, then puts them on tree with much walking in circles and reaching - again with gangly appendages. then, wondertreewoman wrassles up every small tchotchke in the house, ties each with ribbon to create ornaments and begins festooning. now, she neatly avoids thoughts of how sad it might seem to herself or to others that she is putting up said tree alone on a sunday evening at the ripe old age of 31. a few minutes later, she realizes she is perhaps a genius, actually, as there is no one there to argue about the potentially tacky but probably perfect strips of material she cuts up, ties into garlands and drizzles from ol' tannenbaum's boughs. finally, she vacuums then sits down to drink in results while eating almond butter on a spoon. (yes, she double dips.)
