Metamorphosis

Reading way too many books. Must stop.
Must clean toilets.
Must create space on kitchen counter to assemble and cut one peanut butter sandwich (make required number one at a time).
Must email friends.
Must find missing school papers before last day.
Must find missing library books before last day.
Must brave laundry piles to find Eliot's gym-shirt (close eyes and dive).
Must grocery shop (taco bell doesn't count).(Taco Boy also doesn't count- in spite of their "wet burrito" menu- mmmm.)
Must take shower (insert this item before item reading, must grocery shop).
Must garden.
Must take long walk.
Must not substitute for true and deserved satisfaction that false sense of accomplishment achieved by reading books on any or all of these subjects.
Reading way too many books. Must stop.

This is my "To Do" list for the next few days. Scott left this morning for St. Louis and won't return until Friday evening. I have a secret plan while he is gone and I'm letting you all in on it: I'm going to pretend to be a homemaker or housewife or executive familias or whatever they're calling it these days, instead of the scholar/researcher/philosopher/writer/VIP that I really am.
In fact, I am going to do more than pretend, seeing that while I am actively engaged performing the duties and rites of a homemaker, I will in fact be creating an environment which could, under certain circumstances, be called home; and thus, I will BE, in fact, a homemaker. The benefits of this, I expect to be both profound and multitudinous, the chief of these being that I will stop pulling out fistfulls of hair and screaming; I will be able think clearly again; I will be able to walk on nothing but the floor, all the way to my bed. Maybe the kids will even come back from the neighbors' house (Add to above list: call neighbor and remind kids not to forget toothbrushes.)
When all is complete, and I am a sane, clean woman in a clean and sane house, I will pour myself a glass of pinot noir, sit leisurely on my sofa, and admire my shiny new "homemaker" badge (I lost the first one ages ago, and haven't been able to convince any self-respecting institution to issue me one, since). I'll carefully apply a natural clay face mask, and paint my toe-nails pink. And I know just the book I'm going to read.

River Bank Run

This past Saturday, on Scott's 36th(!) birthday, he and our two oldest boys ran the 5k River Bank Run, downtown.

Scott made it out, but not ahead of Marshall or Micah, who have been running consistently for a month. Marshall came in at 26:23 and Micah at 27:50, Scott at 28:48.

After the race, Micah said to me, "We should train and do races as a family."

I don't know about the future. But I do know that if I'd attempted a three and a half mile run on Saturday, my chances of being alive to write this were very slim.

In other news, a group of North Hills Classical Academy parents have decided to pull out and start our own school next year. I'm on the curriculum committee and have been swamped with reading. I've also felt ill. I have so much to do and so little energy or motivation. So that's why the lack of writing here (I have been writing, but not for the blog).

Be well. I'll be back, perhaps, but I don't know how soon.

Optimism, Unconquered

I took Eliot with me to return movies this afternoon. At the video store or at the library, he takes pride as well as pleasure in his contribution to our trip: loading and dropping the due materials into the "drop box".

Today he had kicked off his shoes on the trampoline in our backyard and forgot to put them on again before getting into the car.

"Mommy, I really want to put the movies in the box. But I kind of don't want anyone to see me. They might think I'm kind of weird. Do you know why? Socks. I have socks on and not any shoes. They might think I'm weird because I don't have any shoes on. I don't want anybody to see me in my socks. " (This is really how Eliot talks. He's logical, organized, wordy, uses complete sentences, and says all of it very, very slowly.)

"Well, I don't think it matters," I said. "Just go straight to the box and come right back. Nobody will even see."

He did. He came back. As he closed the van's sliding door he started to laugh, "Nobody even noticed me!"

It was true. I had been watching. There were people all around and not one of them had looked at him, much less at his shoeless feet.

"Sometimes you'll be glad of it, Eliot, and sometimes it will make you sad. But people don't really notice each other all that much." I said.

"Why would it make me sad?"

"Well, you might be lonely and want a friend. Or maybe you'll work really hard to do something, and you'll just want somebody to notice."

"But Mommy, what if you're wearing socks while you're doing it?"