Trailer Wife

A writing deadline, for me, equates to permission for bad behavior. I stop doing the dishes. Bags of Hershey's kisses appear and are consumed by the handful. Gusser's clothes don't match, fruit goes bad, liters of empty diet coke bottles pile up under the sink... it's not pretty. Needless to say, blogging is sacrificed to hours bent painfully over 4th and 5th drafts.

But this morning, when I woke up to take my completed short story to Kinkos (sidenote: since when are photocopies 9 cents a piece!!!), I felt the deadline mania slip away, and actually stopped to appreciate this sunrise. The photo hardly does it justice - isn't that always the case? I stood on the porch for a long time, feeling minutes ticking by for the first time in a week. It was lovely.

Not much is happening, aside from the fiction marathon. The graduate workshop I'm in is providing some much needed intellectual stimulation. For one thing, there is grown up conversation. How did I live without it for so long?? (Apologies to Sam) All of the mommy-angst that had been building up over the last year has suddenly found an outlet, and I feel worthy of being a member of the universe again.

Gus is growing up a little more every day. Have I mentioned what a great kid he is? I swear to God, he has this bemused, humoring look that he gives me when I am particularly frantic and inept, which makes me think of him as more of a good-natured (albeit very needy) roommate than offspring. He is very thoughtful these days, and studies objects and people for a long time before smiling and giving them unintelligible names. Sam is certain he saw a dog on TV the other day and said, Pubby!, and I'm hoping that doesn't portend some animal fixation to manifest in the coming years.

While I was ogling the sunrise, Gus crept out into the foyer and stood smiling at me when I turned around, cocking his head to the side as if to say, "See? What did I tell you." If he turns out to be a Buddhist monk or a classical flautist, I won't be at all surprised.

PS - it was 50 degrees today, and will approach 60 tomorrow! I'm beginning to think that this "extreme weather," is just a nasty rumor.