Two nights ago, through a divine swipe of serendipity, I found myself with a free night during Spa Week. And as I lay prostrate on that table, being wrenched and pummeled by a woman half my size, I had an epiphany: I shouldn't need this this much. Having time for me, to do something utterly devoted to Me Maintenance, shouldn't seem so exotic and rare. And right when the massage therapist (whom I'd very much like to marry someday) stuck her knuckle in my hipbone and made my toes vibrate, I decided that my garden has become too overgrown, and I can't see my house from here.
It's time to feel more at home in my own life.
The five-day CoYombus holiday weekend was a step in the right direction, because I resolved to ignore all the Things Pending and devote my time to fun with the kids. I don't want to sound too Pollyannish about this, since single-parenting two young dynamos is as true a test of stamina as anything. You think Magnus ver Magnusson is a tough guy because he can pull a semi with his teeth? Ha. Bullshit on Toast. But even though their interests are approaching diametric opposition, my children are really terrific company when they're not trying to give each other brain damage.
It was the height of Peeping season, so we made like good New Yorkers and helped clog the Thruway on the way to an upstate apple orchard. There was a corn maze, a bike track, an apple slingshot, and acres of trees to climb. And what was the star attraction? A massive dirthole. So in the face of gorgeous autumnal splendor, three boys spent almost an hour scrambling frantically out of the Sarlacc's gaping maw:
The next day we went to Wave Hill, which is a ridiculously beautiful park that I'd never visited before because I am a hapless idiot. The park has Family Art Projects every weekend; this time, an artist showed slides of Antarctic animals and helped kids sculpt models out of this awesome air-drying clay, which you can color with markers and which when dried looks good enough to eat:
So in conclusion, there's nothing like a little fun (and a spine rearrangement) to break one out of a funk. From now on, I will write my book and I will write my blog, because writing is fun when it isn't completely harrowing.
And I'm even going to blop again. Unless McCain wins, in which case being kept alive and slowly digested by Sarlaccan stomach acid over several thousands of years will look pretty good.
