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.