More Fun With Verbs

I'm not dooce. I'm not even blackbird. But someone left a comment telling me they missed me, so I'm posting.

It's hard to believe that there was ever a time that I was obsessed with my blog stats. For 2005, I was probably lucky to get 50 hits a day. But then a few people linked to me, and I did a few giveaways, and the next thing you know, I would decide on a figure and become grimly determined to achieve it. Like "must-reach-100-hits-a-day-for-a-week," or "must-hit-200-hits-a-day-even-on-Sunday." And with perseverance, it would happen.

But this leads to a lot of blogging for the sake of blogging. Less living, more blogging. And not only does that lead to memes and Wordless Wednesdays and such, it leads to an unhealthy level of introspection.

Not that there's anything wrong with introspection. It's just that it's the province of the young. When you're in your teens and twenties, it's right and proper for you to spend a lot of time figuring yourself out. It's good preventative medicine. You need to figure yourself out so you don't marry someone completely inappropriate, or get married, have kids, and then have some kind of ridiculous midlife crisis.

Those are the years to put your energy into what you want to be.

But when you're in your 40s and 50s, that kind of navel gazing seems pretty stupid. You're in your peak earning years. Or, in the case of us housewives, your peak "put the oxygen mask on your own face, then put it on your children" years.

It doesn't matter what kind of person I want to be. I have kids.

So that's what I've been doing for the last two weeks. Running around putting oxygen masks on everyone else's face.

Shopping for back-to-school supplies, talking to teachers and advisors and resource centers and social workers, signing forms, attending meetings, writing checks, helping with homework, washing clothes, folding laundry, driving, listening, cooking, and comforting.

And reciting the time-worn limerick, "There once was a man from Nantucket," to prove to my son that the kid in his advisory who claimed he made it up? Is a lying sack of shit.

I've also been going to physical therapy three times a week, because I have frozen shoulder. To continue with my airplane analogy, my left wing isn't working right.

And just so you know, when you can't raise your left arm any higher than parallel to the floor? You end up cutting the shit out of yourself when you try to shave your armpit.

(P.S. My title comes from my son's latest Latin worksheet.)