-
Smile
I’m alive! Whenever I try to be funny about semi-funny unfunny things, I’m told it fails. So again, I’m alive. Not yet myself, but f-i-n-e.
Now go smile at this beach scene and wish we were there.
-
Cool Ranch Doritos
Sunday night brought a familiar sense of sudden dread.
I had been sick all day with a fever, not able to go outside and enjoy one of the last free days in the summer heat humidity. And since I wasn’t out having fun, a familiar notion of waste was gnawing at me, spending an entire day on the couch:
Jessica, did you do the dishes? I know you didn’t finish your budget work. What about the bills? And all that mail on your desk? The refrigerator is both empty and dirty. And just think of the light switches – the very dirty light switches which you did not clean.
It was especially bad since there was nothing left in the Tivo but the Olympics. (Wasn’t it nice when USA Basketball linked arms and stepped onto the platform together? Yes, yes it was.)
Eric was kind enough to play caretaker and stopped working to watch the latest Netflix arrival, Ratatouille, with me, which was awesome, both of Eric and of Brad Bird. But as the credits rolled, it was 6:45, and suddenly the sun was sinking. The sick kid-on-the-couch in me was wailing: But It’s Still Summer…
I’ve been looking forward to fall for weeks now, bemoaning the 80+ temperatures and wet heat shoved on us by M. Nature. A week ago, I was more than ready to embrace the early sunset. But in this last week before Labor Day, I’m reliving all those childhood summers when I’d start to panic about school being inflicted upon me yet again. New pencils and pens and notebooks and folders were just the pretty trappings of prison.
Seeing now that it was wise of my parents to start scheduling our annual Jersey shore trips in this last week, when I’d only have a day to notice that fall was moving in and my freedom moving out, now I’m looking for something to distract me. In all my post-school years, I’ve never felt the dread quite so accutely.
Even though it’s business as usual here in the adult world, it feels like there’s a nasty change to come. More work. More seriousness. More stuff that must get done. Mo’ money, mo’ problems. (Just that last part, actually.)
It’s funny to try to shoo away the feelings of a nine year old all these years later. Even though I won’t be reporting in to the new (and soon-to-be-found-awesome) third-grade teacher, Mrs. Duemesi (who ate Cool Ranch Doritos on her pizza!) those feelings are just as real now as they were then:
Please don’t make me go.
Even though I want corduroys and sweaters and knitting to be appropriate again; even though I want a crisp fall breeze and auburn leaves on the ground; even though I haven’t actually been on summer vacation and I don’t have to go back to school, I vehemently feel the cry of summer can’t be over already.
Anyone up for a trip to the beach?