Day #342: Humor is Emotional Chaos Remembered in Tranquility

When I was a kid I had this (totally illegally copied on cassette tape from the library) audiobook of The Cat Ate My Gymsuit by Paula Danziger. This book was formative for me for a lot of reasons and I actually prefer its sequel There's a Bat in Bunk Five, but one thing I remember is that she has to write a paper on the James Thurber quote that is the title for this post and her response is "I am never going to be calm enough to think this is funny."

This is what I thought yesterday as we finally finished the writing assignment from hell and I stuck it on my bookshelf to find someday. As a friend said, if I were the sort of person who drinks I would have put it on the shelf with a bottle of bourbon. Given the state of my bookshelves it will likely be awhile before I find them again, but right now it's difficult to imagine being in a place where when I find them it will bring a "oh, remember how awful that week was" smile.

So the writing assignment from hell is over. Yesterday's portion of it was supposed to be easy...he literally had to record himself reading it out loud, but there was a rehearsal involved and...literally at this point just pulling out this g-d thing brings out a meltdown.

Today was a typical Wednesday...our workload on Wednesdays is VERY light so we didn't even start school until almost 11...on Wednesdays he has no live sessions at all so today I laid in bed and let him play Mario Maker #worldsokayestmom. And we were still done by 1. Got the overdue bath in, the errands run, feeling a little more caught up if you don't look at the general state of the living room it actually looks like we are coping quite well. James's response to this morning was "Today has been a good day. There was no yelling," which, lemme tell you, that made me feel awesome. 

This weekend my best friend and I are supposed to take the kids to an Air BNB on the beach...and it's supposed to snow. I've lived here long enough to know "supposed to snow" could mean anything so I'm watching it with apprehension...don't want to cancel, don't want to cancel too soon, also don't feel like getting stuck 2 hours away. Always hard to know how to handle these situations. Based on the forecast we should know more after tomorrow so fingers crossed.

Other than the all consuming writing assignment, it's hard to think of what to report. FINALLY got James's hair cut. Did I mention a couple of weeks ago he gashed a hole in his bangs? Told me I had waited to long to get his hair cut so he cut himself a hole so he could see. This is my child.

He also makes friends everywhere he goes now. Every drive thru barista he has to learn their name and tell them all about himself. So lonely, this kid.

My BFF the teacher reminded me this week that it is normal for kids to hit a wall this time of year ANYWAY, and this year especially so so to be gentle with ourselves and each other. James's coping mechanism is like mine. He reads A LOT. He read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in like 2 days after his dad read it to him. And he watches too much TV. That's what he's doing now. It's 4:30. 4:30 is the roughest time of day because it's too long to dinner but late in the day so we're tired. The past few days we've run around outside during this time even though it's cold. Today we've been out long enough so we may not need to. 

Max's big thing is he likes to draw with crayons every day when James is doing school. I love this. This is how I get writing done now. I get my writing prompt book out and do a writing prompt with Max while he draws. Thank God for Max. I don't know how I would have gotten through the last year without Max. 

So that's life here. Media consumption...I've been watching Wings...there are lots of seasons of Wings. Tonight Josh has his Zoom boys' night so my plan is to curl up with The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas which I got from the library and haven't seen in FOREVER. I'm reading Let the Circle Be Unbroken which is the sequel to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, and I'm listening to A Farewell to Arms which I hated in high school. It is...making me think, so that's something. Hoping to finish both this week and read all things warm and fuzzy this weekend.

Today I'm grateful for the writing assignment being over, for a haircut for James and seeing our wonderful haircut lady, for cake pops, good books, raising readers, playing outside, bad TV, family, and good health. 

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