Monday, September 25, 2006

H/n - Sf= 0

I keep having these horrifying dreams at night. Last night I dreamed all my teeth fell out and I kept trying to fit them back into the gums but every time I tilted my head forward they all tumbled out of my mouth like Chiclets. And I wanted dentures but the dentist didn't have any teeth for the plates -- just the old caps from the paint tubes in my tacklebox.

It's a very bad dream, to have a dream like this. I don't know what it means, but I know how it feels -- the frustration and the anxiety and the scrabbling to fix what's been ruined irretrievably. You only get one set of teeth. You don't want to go around replacing them with paint caps.

I have under a week in which to finish the work for the art show. And that's fine. Although. Every time I pick up a paintbrush, or a telephone, or sit down in front of the computer, one of the children has a crisis and threatens to jump out the window if I don't stop everything I'm doing thisminute and attend to them. NOW!

In fact one does start to wonder if one is in fact kidding oneself about entertaining the very idea that one can have a career entirely separate from one's home. Really.

Which brings me to the other dream I had: that I had to go back to eighth grade (again! and I'm so tired of eighth grade. I seem to visit it once or twice a week) whereas I stood up in math class and delivered this stunning report:

"Given my mathematical equasion, the anomaly in scientific formula that I have discovered reads that productive hours of the day (H) left toward deadline must be divided by number of children one has birthed and then subtracted in increasing increments by the number of times said children whine (which will be hereafter referred to as the Screech Factor, or Sf) upon their realizing that said mother is otherwise occupied with something not exactly pertaining to said children. Therefore my equasion reads:"

H/n - Sf = 0

Then I wanted to drive my own car home and everyone else got mad at me because they had to ride the bus.

I'm sure I'll be much easier to be around after next Sunday. Really. I mean it.