This weekend my sister-in-law treated me to my first pedicure. I had long wanted to try one, going so far as to price them at various locations, peek in the windows of pedicure places, and ask people what pedicures were like—but I kept not following through out of New Things/Places Nervousness. Also, I have ticklish feet and was worried the experience would be torture.

Going with someone else was KEY: I, my sister-in-law Anna, and my sister-in-law’s sister Lottie who I also think of as my sister-in-law all went together, and it is just so much more comfortable to go through the process with people you can chat with if you are feeling awkward about a stranger rubbing your calves. Also, it is nice to go with people who have had pedicures before, because they can give you the heads-up about the calf-rubbing.

Plus, one thing I remembered from my first manicure a long while back is that the manicure did not include clipping. That is, I was supposed to cut my own nails, and the manicure place would use a file to shape them, but that most of the point of the manicure was the fancier things with cuticles and paint. So it was nice to have someone to ask if I was supposed to cut my own toenails first. The answer was “Yes, if you don’t like someone else doing it for you.” Indeed I don’t, so I clipped my own. The pedicurist still did do a few little tiny shaping snips, but not many—maybe three or four tiny snips total.

Oh, and I remember one more question I was glad to get to ask ahead of time, which was whether I was supposed to take off the rest of my toenail polish beforehand. The answer was no, they would do that. This was very pleasing, because I hate taking off the old polish. Also, I’d used blue the last time and hadn’t used a protective base coat, so the nails were stained blue; the pedicurist got most of that off with something abrasive.

I’d been worried about ticklishness, but it was not too bad. Most of the foot-touching is too firm to feel tickly. The filing was the only part I found uncomfortable, and that wasn’t so much the tickliness as the vibrating/scraping sensation that is exactly what I don’t like about filing. But on the other hand, I was also VERY DISTRACTED by the interesting conversation we were having, so perhaps if I went on my own the other parts would bother me more.

Another of my concerns was that the pedicurist might reel back in horror at my never-been-pedicured feet. This did not occur. She did not even make critical remarks, or tsk at me, or say anything from my imaginings (“Wow, I can really tell YOU’VE never had a pedicure before!” or “Boy, I’ve got MY work cut out for me!”). She just got to work without comment.

Polish-choosing was fun and a little stressful. There were so many choices! But nobody rushed us: the color-choosing was the very first thing, so it was as if we hadn’t even arrived for our appointments until we’d chosen the color. This was much better than at my manicure, where the manicurist got to the painting part and THEN directed me to choose a color while she waited.

I’d thought I would choose a blue or green or purple, but got nervous about the shade looking corpsey/zombie-like. Plus, my old polish was blue, so I felt like having something different. My inclination was to choose something unlike anything I had at home, but it can be so difficult to know what a polish will look like: at my manicure, I got a pink that looked subtle in the bottle but like bubblegum on my fingernails. Eventually I stopped trying to force myself to be adventurous, and chose the color that most appealed to me, which was a magenta-pink I know I like.

One of my sisters-in-law was undecided between two shades, so she brought both over and asked to see them. The pedicurist painted one of her own fingernails in each of the colors so we could see. This was extremely helpful, though it led to the pedicurist giving her own strong opinion on which was better, which fortunately was the same as the one the three of us thought was better. If it were me, and if the pedicurist’s opinion were different than my own, I’d feel some discomfort choosing the polish I wanted instead of the polish she wanted. I’m not saying this is how things SHOULD be, but there it is. This is another situation where it would be nice to have a companion: I can picture the pedicurist giving her opinion, and then me turning to my friend and saying, “I don’t know, I might like the other one,” and my friend saying, “Oh, me too” and then me feeling more braced.

There were some language-barrier issues, which I think would improve with repeated experience: it’s much easier to understand instructions and questions when you know what sorts of instructions and questions to expect.

The three of us also agreed afterward that we felt a little odd about having someone else tend to us in this way. I think it’s that it might feel as if one person shouldn’t have to do certain things for another person? or something? I’m not sure I can put a finger on what the issue is, but it comes up from time to time with service-industry things. I feel similarly weird when the hair stylist is washing my hair, or when someone is cleaning the public bathroom, or when I consider hiring a house-cleaner.

There were two things that surprised me about my recent airplane travel, but now I can only remember one of them. Well, I will start with that, and maybe the other one will come to me as I write.

The first thing that surprised me was how many people felt comfortable asking their fellow travelers to switch for a worse seat. The first time I heard someone with the middle seat say, “Do you mind if I sit in your window seat instead?,” I thought, “Wow, that takes GUTS. Or, like, some sort of empathy disorder.” But it happened on every flight, multiple times, and that was just the cases that happened within my earshot. It seemed that everyone with the middle seat subscribed to the “Doesn’t Hurt to Ask” Policy—a policy it will not surprise you to discover I vehemently disagree with in many, many situations. In many situations it DOES hurt to ask. It DOES.

This may seem like an ironic complaint, considering my flight strategy involved the high likelihood of asking someone else to switch seats. I had deliberately booked the aisle and window seats for Elizabeth and me, figuring that if the flight wasn’t full (note: flights are always full), this would increase our chances of getting our whole row of three seats to ourselves, since the middle seats sell last. The difference here is that the inferiority of the middle seat is WIDELY RECOGNIZED (they SELL LAST). This is not one of those things where I have a Secret Arbitrary Rule I disdain others for not following: “It’s okay to ask to switch if it’s a WEST-bound flight, but not if it’s an EAST-bound flight.” Instead my strategy was based on the comfortable assumption that ALMOST EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD prefers NOT to have the middle seat—that I would in fact be IMPROVING SOMEONE’S LIFE by asking. Asking someone to switch for something universally considered better is not the equivalent of asking someone to switch for something universally considered worse. “Listen, I wonder if you’d do me the tremendous favor of trading my $20 bill for your $1 bill” is not the equivalent of “Hey, how about I give you my $1 and you give me your $20? I’d prefer it,” even if it’s true there do exist a few people who would be burdened by more money and would prefer to have less, or who desperately need that dollar bill for the bathroom vending machine.

And even knowing the vast statistical likelihood was that I was going to give our potential middle-seat companion a VASTLY IMPROVED airplane experience, I STILL started out sitting in my assigned aisle seat rather than presumptuously assuming they would want to switch with me. For all I know (and because every question that begins “Am I the only one who…?” can be automatically answered “No” without even hearing the rest of the question), that person could have DELIBERATELY booked a middle seat because they feel safer sitting between two people, or because they have that thing that’s the opposite of claustrophobia, or because they read an article saying people in middle seats die less often in emergency landings, or because 24B is their lucky seat, or WHATEVER.

But in a couple of cases I personally witnessed, a middle-seat person SAT IN SOMEONE ELSE’S WINDOW OR AISLE SEAT, and then, when that person arrived and politely requested to sit in their own seat, said, “Ohhhhhh, do you mind if I sit here instead? I prefer it.” Me: WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE. Oh, do you mind if I take your book and snack? I’d prefer to have those items. Hey, do you mind if I open your wallet and take out your money? I’d prefer to have it. Hey, it doesn’t hurt to ask!

And in my own situation, I needn’t have stressed about the unpleasantness of having to ask a stranger for something they would likely joyfully agree to (“Do you mind terribly sitting in the far more desirable and comfortable seat? Oh, dear, I’m so sorry to ask!”), because in both cases our middle seat person said, “Oh, do you mind if I sit in the aisle or window instead? I’d prefer it.” Okay, no, that is a lie: it only happened once. But the second time, our seatmate noticed Elizabeth, figured out we were likely traveling together, and with huge hope in his voice asked if we’d like to sit together.

I still haven’t thought of that second thing that surprised me.

We got the bill for Paul’s hospital stay, and it’s kind of pleasing to see the whole deductible taken care of in one shot like that, especially because the insurance year started in May. Perhaps I am just a little irritable with Paul right now, but I would have expected him to get sick right BEFORE the deductible reset.

Another very pleasing thing is that our hospital (and maybe all hospitals do this, I don’t know) gives a 10% discount if you pay in full within 10 days. That’s a pretty hefty discount, and has me filling out the payment information within about 30 seconds of opening the envelope. I am apparently more rewards-based than penalty-based—though I also find penalties/fees extremely motivating. In fact, I guess I see this just as much as a penalty for paying late.

********

It looks as if I have failed to mention that Rob recently started the cello, after more than six months of dithering around (mine). He first mentioned it around Christmas, and I was like, “Mm hm, well we’ll see,” which is my preferred technique for weeding out the fleeting interests of children. But he persisted, and was watching videos on YouTube of people playing cello, and was saying “When can we talk again about cello?,” and so finally I started turning a few gears—but slowly, not only for weeding purposes but also because there turned out to be a lot of hassle involved: no cello teachers in our area, apparently, and no place renting cellos.

But finally I got my brother involved (he is musical and I am not, and he is the children’s advocate and sponsor when it comes to instruments), and one day last month the children and I spent half a day bringing home the cello. It is the most dramatic instrument I have ever been responsible for. The guy at the instrument place was giving us instructions like a nurse in the maternity ward. At one point I said, “I feel like I’m bringing home a newborn. Ha ha,” and he said, “Well…” with a RISING sort of trailing-off and tip of the head, informing me that I was not far off, and that newborns were, after all, less particular about humidity levels.

It was also difficult to acquire a cello teacher. We finally found one, a student herself, and I don’t know why she’s willing to drive an hour’s round trip for a half-hour lesson, and in fact have had to talk myself through the “We can’t make decisions for other people” talk a number of times. To me, it seems like a very bad deal she’s getting. But perhaps she wants the experience, or perhaps she is financially in the “Every dollar is significant” category, or perhaps she has some other reason I don’t know about, or perhaps in time she will think “This is crazy” and quit—but she is the ONLY cello teacher we could find, so I am not going to tell her she shouldn’t work for us.

And here is the thing: after all these months of discussing a cello, pleading for a cello, asking can we talk again about what the chances are that we can get a cello—Rob is not practicing. The cello teacher told us he should mess around with the cello before his first lesson, just to get the feel for it, and he did that, but only once. He had his first lesson, and in the week before his second lesson he practiced only once. He had his second lesson, and in the week before his third lesson he has not practiced at all. Compare this to piano, where as soon as we got the keyboard he started voluntarily playing on it every single day for more than the suggested practicing time, and has persisted in that for well over a year, including very satisfying behaviors such as playing vigorously to blow off steam after he feels we’ve been very stupid and unreasonable.

I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I subscribe to the idea that if I have to do a lot of nagging, this is not an interest worth pursuing/funding. On the other hand, a certain measured amount of nagging can be considered “coaching” or “training,” and kids are not great at making themselves do things, and maybe nagging is required to make sure he gives it a fair shot, and this was an awful lot of hassle so he should at least try a LITTLE harder to make that effort worth it, and so on. It is hard to know what’s best, but I don’t enjoy nagging, and I don’t enjoy being responsible for making someone else responsible, and honestly I don’t know why I thought parenting would be to my tastes, then, but here we are.

I do feel like this is a win-win situation. If Rob does turn out to enjoy the cello (maybe he just hates the early parts where he’s not good at something yet, or maybe it’s the hassle of taking it out of its case as opposed to just being able to sit down and start playing), then I will be happy we went to the trouble, and I will be pleased that he has this interesting interest, and it will be fun for me to see him being musical when I am not. Also, I like the sound of the cello, so I will be pleased about that too.

And if he doesn’t turn out to enjoy it, I will be relieved to take that thing back to the shop and not have to worry about it anymore. It’s a rental: if we keep paying rent on it for three years, we will own it. But, I asked the guy at the store, what if it’s not a good fit after all? “Then you bring it back to us, and we stop charging the credit card,” said the guy. “No fees or penalties?,” I asked anxiously. “Nope,” he said. “As long as you were careful about humidity.”

Also I would be relieved not to have a cello teacher coming to our house.

I made an exciting purchase this weekend:

(photo from Amazon.com)

And I very nearly embarrassed myself getting it, too. I’d seen it for the first time at Target a couple of weeks ago, but it was on one of those locked racks where you have to have an employee get it for you, and I didn’t have time that day to fetch an employee. Then I saw it a second time at Target, again on a locked rack, and I was going to summon an employee but then inexplicably got shy and didn’t want to. So this weekend I was in the store and felt shy again about asking an employee, and I thought, “This is ridiculous. ASK AN EMPLOYEE. THIS IS NOT A SCARY THING TO DO.” But then the first one I saw was with another customer, and the next two were talking intensely to each other about something that seemed to be a problem, kind of speaking sharply over a clipboard. I was about to use the call button when I thought, just on a whim, that I’d see if the rack was still locked. No reason for that to have changed, but, you know, just in case. And it WASN’T a locked rack anymore. So I almost summoned an employee, “Oh, yes, hello; I want to buy this but it’s on a locked rack”—when it wasn’t on a locked rack. With double relief (didn’t have to ask employee AND didn’t make fool of self), I put it into the cart.

It came in black and pink. I thought pink would be easier to find in my purse. Plus, I like pink. I’m very happy to own it. I was under the impression that mace was no longer available to purchase, because of a time back when I was pregnant for the first time and nervous about walking alone, and I tried to buy some and the clerk told me it was no longer available and that maybe the police department could help me if I really needed some. I gave up, just like that. I thought it was like syrup of ipecac, where it used to be in the baby section and then suddenly it wasn’t available, and finally I asked the pediatrician and he said yeah, they weren’t recommending that anymore. I used to feel anxious if I didn’t have it in the house! It was a PARENTING ESSENTIAL! And then…gone!

Where was I? Oh, yes, the mace. Or perhaps pepper spray is not the same as mace, but anyway something I can spray into someone’s eyes and then run away. I don’t USUALLY feel the need to have mace nearby, but there have definitely been times (walking to my car in the dark, for example) when I’ve wished to have a reassuring little canister in my hand, and now I have a reassuring little canister.

Some of my kids are taking lessons this week from a guy in his 60s we’ve encountered previous summers. I think he’s probably a good teacher, but I also think he thinks of himself as a great and inspiring person who commands the children’s admiration and respect. He also thinks he does a better job than the parents, and has some issues with correcting children’s behavior when the parents have already picked up the children and the lessons are over. “No sticks! Put that down!” he says sharply to Henry, when Henry has picked up a small stick in the parking lot.

Also, he is the type of person, and I don’t know how to describe this but I’ve encountered it before: he FREQUENTLY says something mystifying and then does a long significant pause, and I’ll have no idea at all whether I’m supposed to know what he’s talking about, or whether he’s waiting for me to ask him what he’s talking about, or whether he’s pausing for effect before going on, or WHAT. Or worse, he’ll ask a question and I’ll have no idea what he’s talking about. “Do you feel the giant change?,” he’ll say, in a tone as if he’s making a very clever in-joke. Me: *blank look, inner panic*

This is all just background for the story I’m going to tell about what happened yesterday. I was the last parent to pick up kids, and he gave me a report on how they were doing. Then things went right off the rails. He asked Henry if Henry knew what coordination was, and Henry gave a close-but-no-cigar answer, so the teacher said he would tell him what it was. At this point the teacher went for audience participation, which is way at the top of my Most Hated list. I associate it strongly with several of my least favorite things: not knowing what’s expected of me; looking foolish; having to think fast; not knowing what’s going on next to someone who DOES know what’s going on and is exploiting that situation to enhance their own performance; feeling pressure to go along with things.

So I was already feeling unhappy when I put out my hand palm-up as instructed, and I wished the teacher could tell Henry what coordination was without involving me, but another thing I hate about audience participation is that I can’t imagine saying, “No, I’d prefer not to do the absolutely small and reasonable thing you just asked me to do.” And so I don’t say it, and later I worry that this means I am someone who would go along with Terrible Things just because I wouldn’t want to say anything.

ANYWAY. There I am, hand held out. And the teacher put his hand palm-down, about an inch over mine. I waited for the next thing to happen, but nothing else happened. Then he said expectantly, confidently, “Feel that?” Me: *inner panic, FEEL WHAT???* *looks at hand to see if his hand is touching, because I don’t feel anything* “……..I just feel……heat?” “No,” he said, “That’s ENERGY.” Me: *inner panic increases* Fortunately, he interpreted my blank, panicked look as amazed attentiveness, so he went on: “Now, what kind of energy is it?” Me: *INNER PANIC INCREASES EXPONENTIALLY* Him: “Does it feel relaxing? nervous?” Me: *oh hey I know this answer* “Nervous.” Him, and I am not even kidding: “That’s because you don’t let people get close to you. You haven’t for years, have you? I can sense a box around you. You keep people out, don’t you?” Me: *dear God, I will pay you one million dollars to make this stop happening, seriously I will write you a post-dated check right now*

Wouldn’t it have been great if I’d said, “Do you notice that box around most people you meet? Because I think what you’re sensing is a thing called Personal Space, or perhaps we could call it Appropriate Social Boundaries. ‘Not liking to have a strange man standing this close and doing weird things’ is not the same as ‘Not letting personal relationships develop emotional closeness over time'”? Instead of what I DID do, which was to stare at him in horrified, paralyzed silence.

Again, fortunately or unfortunately, he interpreted my reaction as hitting a hole in one, and he nodded at the way he was astounding me by telling me truths about myself. He made very intense eye contact. “You get headaches, too, don’t you?,” he continued. “Behind your eyes, and at the back of your neck.” I wondered what on EARTH the kids were thinking of this. I tried to imagine transitioning from this activity to one in which I was walking away toward my car, and couldn’t picture how that would go.

He continued with his cold-reading/horoscope stuff. I had goals, he told me; I kept THOSE close to me, didn’t I? Our hands, unbelievably, were still extended, about an inch apart. Noticing this, he said he was now going to CHANGE the energy from nervous to soothing. He appeared to concentrate. He looked at me expectantly, already anticipating and appreciating my forthcoming impressed response. At this point, I am glad to say that at least I did NOT agree that the energy was soothing. I said I still just felt heat. Then I looked at the kids, just a regular mother monitoring their behavior and accidentally not noticing that in doing so she had taken her hand away from the oddest demonstration ever of the word coordination, not a trapped rabbit looking for an escape route. He clapped his hand onto my shoulder and kept it there, and I looked up, startled, broadcasting a strong clear signal to anyone with any psychic/sensing abilities whatsoever: “III HAAATE THISSS.” Every empathetic person within ten miles probably got a weird feeling for a second. I thought “Crap, he’s going to think this obvious all-but-hissing-and-spitting reaction confirms his theory that I don’t let people get close.” He nodded understandingly: he felt he had received my signal loud and clear. “Felt that, didn’t you!” he said proudly. “THAT was relaxing energy!”

My savior appeared at this point: a little boy from the class wandered back over. The conversation turned back to the lessons and how they had gone and what needed to be improved. I asked the children had they said thank you yet, and they said no, so I had them say thank you and then we followed that path of politeness right through to good-bye and see you tomorrow. As soon as the car door closed behind us I said “What the ACTUAL HECK was that?” and the children relaxed into relieved laughter. Then I told Henry what coordination was.

I woke up to an unseasonably cold breeze coming through the window, so I am giving my forehead wrinkle some deepening/strengthening exercises this morning worrying that Elizabeth isn’t warm enough and we should have packed her more long pants. Well, she does have a lightweight hoodie, a medium-weight hoodie, and a raincoat; she can layer them if she’s cold.

Last night I finished an absorbing book: You Should Have Known, by Jean Hanff Korelitz.

(photo from Amazon.com)

I am so sick, SO SICK, of book summaries that are like this: “Kate Ellington had everything she ever wanted: a handsome successful husband, talented intelligent children, a great house, a cool name, and an interesting/colorful job typical of a women’s book—something like writer or psychologist or fashion-magazine staff, never accountant or Target clerk. THEN ONE DAY…something! happens! that turns her whole world upside-down and she has to re-evaluate her whole life.”

SO SICK OF IT. Furthermore, that category of book realizes it’s overdone, and so has raised the stakes: it’s gone from “it was the husband having an affair” to “it’s a car accident involving a child.” Seriously, over a period of just a few months I started THREE books that pivoted the plot on a child getting hit by a car. NO. I decline to pivot in that manner.

Anyway, this book has that exact set-up: Woman with everything; TRAGEDY STRIKES; life re-evaluation. So I NEVER would have read it except that I must have read a good review of it, because I remember I requested it from the library just by the title, without reading the jacket. Once I’d read the jacket, I renewed it TWICE before reading it: I kept putting it off and reading other books from the pile instead.

And it started off kind of slow. It’s the kind of book where the main character is having a conversation with someone and there is one line of dialogue, and while we’re waiting for the other character to reply, our girl spends two pages thinking about her office furniture. Then there is the next line of dialogue, followed by two pages of remembering how she met her husband. Wearying.

It didn’t take too long, though, before I was All In. This turned out to be a book I wanted to get back to: I’d take out my phone to play Candy Crush, and then put it away and go read the book instead. The basic plot is that a psychologist writes a book called You Should Have Known, telling women how they could have avoided a bad relationship by noticing things that were obvious from the very beginning: things the men essentially told them straight-out would be the major issues. This, as you might expect, leads to some irony.

I was very interested to see how things would turn out, and the author kept the suspense going but not in a way that made me feel I might as well flip to the last page and get it over with: the story DEVELOPED. And I found it very satisfying. There are a lot of places where WE realize something before the character does, and so the point is not the surprise of the plot but more the interest of seeing it happen to someone.

For those sensitive to scary things happening to children, I’m going to put small, non-plot-ruining spoilers in the paragraph, so skip the part between the lines of asterisks if you don’t want to read things ahead of time.

********This is the slight spoiler part beginning here*********
There is one relatively brief (a couple of pages, I think) scene where one character tells a story about something that happened to a small child, resulting in that child’s unnecessary death. Because someone is telling someone else about it calmly (rather than experiencing it as we’re reading), and because it’s not a child we’ve met elsewhere in the plot, I found it tolerable, though I did skim as soon as I realized what was going on, and I had to be careful not to start imagining the story from the mother’s point of view at the time. I think you could skim even more skimmily than I did and still understand the plot: no need to read all the details. Also, one of the main characters works as a pediatric oncologist, so there are a few example-type stories told of children dying of cancer: nothing too vivid, more like how the character will miss events because a child dies, and the age of the child will be given, and it’s easy for one’s imagination to make that a whole lot more vivid than it has to be. Again, I found it tolerable though of course unpleasant. There is one additional scene involving a child, but it crosses the plot-spoiling line to tell it; I will say only that as with the others, I found it tolerable though best to avoid imagining it too vividly. (If you won’t try the book without knowing, email me and I’ll tell you: it won’t completely spoil the plot, it just gives too much information about the kind of trajectory the book is going to take.)
*********This is the end of the slight spoiler part here********

I found the book gave me a lot of interesting things to think about, enough that on a recent longish car ride I turned off the music so I could think about the book. And it’s the kind of book that leads me to see if the author has written anything else because I want to read more. I liked it and would recommend trying it to see if you like it too.

I have dropped Elizabeth off for a week of Girl Scout camp, and I am feeling anxious and bereft. But, happily, not even HALF as anxious and bereft as last year, when it was the first time she’d ever gone to sleep-away camp and also the drop-off went so terribly I ended up feeling like I’d left her with people who wouldn’t even remember to feed her or make sure she didn’t wander off into the woods (and afterward learned of even more issues).

SO much better this year, though. For one thing, even though the drop-off was still poorly organized and non-intuitive, I’d DONE it before so I knew what to expect and didn’t have to figure it all out this time. My first time doing new things, I’m at a stress-level of 11, defined as “Assuming I will die on the trip and so before I leave should make sure everyone has enough clean clothes for the funeral”; the second time, I drop down to about a 4-5.

And because this year we didn’t sign up for the very first week of camp, there were far fewer mishaps and confusions on the camp’s end, too. The only one that annoyed me is that they said I needed a prescription for the Benadryl she’s supposed to take if she has an allergic reaction to tree nuts. Since I had to fill out all those health/medication forms with a deadline back in May, I think “at the moment of drop-off” is unreasonably late for the “You need a prescription for an over-the-counter medication used for emergencies” information. Anyway, I was annoyed but it’s not a huge deal, especially because I was JUST complaining about not finding online doctor sites useful yet, and then last night was able to use the site to request the doctor fax the camp the prescription, so that was happy (assuming it WORKS).

Also, it helps HUGELY that THIS year I know that LAST year she was happy and everything went fine as far as she was concerned. The things I was MOST anxious about (that all her stuff might have gotten soaking wet; that she would be sad and scared and hate it and have a terrible time) didn’t happen: when I picked her up, she didn’t entirely want to come with me. So I’m still doing things like monitoring the weather in her zip code and feeling sad when I realize she’s not sleeping in her room, but I’m not feeling like I made a terrible mistake to let her go and that I need to drink and cry every night. Progress!

Also, on the way home, the person in front of me paid the toll for me. I think that person would be enormously gratified if they could have seen me choking up about it intermittently all the way home. I mean, that’s like the FANTASY for pay-it-forwardy randomy-acts-of kindness: that it will be done for someone who is having kind of a rough day, who will then be Deeply Affected by that small kindness.

I wanted to make a whole multi-exampled post about this topic, but I can only think of one example. I know I’ve thought of OTHER examples while thinking about this topic before, but right NOW is when I want to write about it and I can only think of one. The topic is: Things I Have to Keep, Even Though I Don’t Want Them, Because Otherwise I Will Keep Buying Them.

And my example is headbands. I think of myself as liking headbands. Whenever I have a new hairstyle and I’m looking for ways to wear it, I think of headbands. But I don’t look good in headbands. It is some combination of my glasses and my face shape and perhaps my type of hair and my personality. All I have to do is put a headband on to remember this VIVIDLY.

I am not the only one to think so, either. When I worked at the pharmacy, I had a day I couldn’t get my hair to do anything so I put a headband in it. A co-worker (not a mean one) blurted out a laughing “Oh my god, you look like a politician’s wife!” So you see.

Several times I have, in a fit of “Don’t waste space storing things you don’t even want,” thrown out all my headbands. Which means that I can absolutely throw some money right out with them, because I WILL buy more headbands later, forgetting I don’t like the way I look in them. I’ll REMEMBER throwing out the headbands, but I’ll think, “Well, perhaps THAT haircut didn’t work with them, but I’ll bet THIS one would be adorable!” or “Well, perhaps I was just a bit down on myself that day and didn’t realize I actually looked cute in them.” I will buy more headbands, and lower the first one onto my hair, and oh dear.

So, even though it is silly to keep something I don’t like and never use, it is WELL WORTH IT to do so in the case of headbands: I need a headband (in fact, TWO headbands) to keep me from buying headbands. (Also, very rarely they come in handy if I want to do a face mask or something.)

I wish I could think of more examples of this, because I KNOW I have more items that I keep only so I won’t keep buying them. Perhaps after I post this, more will occur to me—or perhaps you will have similar things to report and those will jog my memory.

Things have improved pretty dramatically around here since yesterday. First, I got my dentist appointment done. It turns out that just about everything looks better AFTER a dentist appointment, even if that dentist appointment includes “Listen, we really need to think about getting those crowns put in.”

Second, Paul was taking a day off this week anyway, so he switched that day with the day I had to take all five kids with me to the city, so now I only have to take one kid with me to the city.

Third, Paul and I started going over the inch-thick stack of will/trust drafts from the lawyer. I forgot to mention that yesterday, but it’s been another thing causing me stress: we’ve GOT to go through those papers, but for many reasons (the emotional impact of reading paragraphs about what happens if any of our children predecease us; the pure difficulty of understanding the language of any of it) it’s hard to do so. Paul printed everything out and stapled it by sections, and then cut up the lawyer’s explanatory email and put each piece of email with its appropriate section, so we could easily tackle it in smaller chunks. This made an enormous difference, and we took care of the first section last night.

Fourth, I did some laundry at my parents’ house. It’s funny how even doing two loads can bring things from THIS IS A CRISIS OF UNIMAGINABLE RESOLUTION down to Perhaps This Is Just a Regular Inconvenience Soon To Be Resolved.

Fifth, William and Elizabeth made chocolate-chip cookies, so there were cookies.

Sixth, I had a gin-and-orange-juice while making dinner. I think I will have a drink before dinner EVERY night this week.

I am having a crummy couple of days, and because it is a very specific and familiar type of crummy, characterized by very specific and familiar crummy feelings, I’ve started making little marks on my desk calendar whenever this mood appears, to see if I can find anything shall we say CYCLICAL about it. Characteristic feelings of this type of mood include:

1. Everything Is Terrible.

2. Yes, I remember feeling at one point that NOT everything was terrible, but that was because I was deluded/distracted/overcomfortable. “Everything Is Terrible” is really the only TRUE way to view the world.

3. I am a bad person in both of two conflicting ways. For example, I am too hard on the kids AND too easy on them. Also, I think too much and not enough about other people. Also, I am an over-spender and a tightwad.

4. Everything I think of as a good part of my character is actually the mask over a bad part: i.e., I donate money to charity because I like to think of myself as a generous person when actually I’m a selfish one. I return stray carts to the corral because I like to feel superior to other people, not because I’m trying to be considerate and helpful.

5. Every Decision I Make Is Wrong.

But so far, the calendar isn’t showing any hormonal patterns. What I see instead is stress patterns: this week I have a dentist appointment and they always make alarming remarks about my gums, and William has an orthodontist appointment and they always speak firmly to me about how he should be improving, and I have to get Elizabeth ready for a week of sleep-away Girl Scout camp, and Rob is having his first lesson on a new instrument with a teacher who is coming to our house, and I have to take all five kids with me on the already-stressful trip to the nearby big city for Edward to get his Crohn’s check-up. Also included are several stressful scheduling issues: we’ll get back from one thing and have about fifteen minutes for lunch and leaving for the next thing; or I’ll be at my appointment when a child needs to be delivered somewhere, so I’ll have to drop him off there half an hour early; or, in the case of the city trip, I have NO IDEA if we’ll get back in time for a scheduled afternoon activity.

Also, our washing machine broke, and it was supposed to take two weeks for the replacement to arrive, but now it’s going to be three. So we’re very very very lucky to live in a time and place where washing machines are readily available, and very very very lucky that when ours broke we could pay for a new one—but laundry was already backed up a week when the machine broke (it had been acting wonky so I was doing only the most crucial things), and now instead of being one week into a two-week wait, I’m one week into a THREE-week wait. Other people get along without washing machines ALL THE TIME and ALL OVER THE WORLD—but they have established systems for doing so. Establishing a system is one of my least favorite things.