5

1. "Can you go entertain yourself for just a minute?" "Don't even worry about it. No one else will ever remember you knocked on the door of the wrong house." "Should I call the principal and get your class assignment changed?" "Go away. I'm trying to write my blog post."  These are the sayings that I thought I would never say. Oh, infinite patience and creativity. Did I use you up on my writing or on my children? Infinity is so much more countable in the summer.

2. Yesterday, while I somewhat bewept my outcast state, I realized after I wrote that I owe a bunch of people emails too. The pressure is somewhat off on all of us would-be correspondents, no?--and since everyone is on vacation every other week, I think you have to multiply by twelve the number of days of expected response. So if someone said, I'll be back to you in two weeks, what they really mean is in 168 days which is also coming up very quickly. Right? That's what I tell myself.

3. Zoe and Max are getting ready to start school on Thursday. Zoe has a new stapler. She will be the hit of the town. Everybody wants to borrow a stapler although this is what happens when you spill the staples all over the floor.

Max has Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle t-shirt and backpack and lunchbox. We have folders and pencils and mechanical pencils and sharpies and I actually bought some Post-Its. While I'm saying things like "Can you go entertain yourself for just a minute," I'm reading the Best American Essays 2013 and pairing with an excursion out of town so the students can immerse themselves and I hope they don't just immerse themselves in trauma. I am reading an excellent manuscript of poems that is beautiful with gods and gangsters and geometries and phrases like this: "set with cuttlefish pounce." I just got a book in the mail to review. I'm going to make dinner tonight even if it kills me. Zoe will get over not being in her best friend's class and the fact she knocked on the wrong door, trying to give her friend a thank you card. And school will start and it will be fine. This picture says so.