After a super-sucky, super-sensitive Monday, wherein I did a lot of stupid things without thinking them through first, like getting all the groceries except for beer, and then getting all teary because after coming home from an eleven-hour work day Jack had to get back in his truck and go out again for a lousy six-pack; and getting snappy when Jackson did only mildly disruptive things, like making me take a half hour to get said groceries from car to apartment when I desperately wanted to get the goddamned grapefruit juice into the refrigerator and check my e-mail, but feeling guilty about rushing him inside because what kind of morning would it be for him if I just dragged him to the laundromat and the grocery store without a little neighborhood wandering/tree patting/rock throwing/peekaboo with the guy fixing the roof next door? But I just wanted to stay inside and dust repetitively because it seemed to be Tell Me To Have Another Baby Day. I am not philosophically opposed to having another child, but Jesus Fuck, I'm just getting back on my feet and you (You) want to knock me over all over again. Why don't we wait another year for the rematch between My Uterus and Your Bossy, Not Asked-for Expectations. 'K? Thanks.

It was especially bad because we had one of Jack's friends visiting over the weekend. When it comes to babies she's hilariously well mannered and says things like, "Hello there, young person," and they look at her like, "What the fuck did you just say? I'm going to stick this spoon in the cat's eye." It's not quite a meeting of minds, her and the young, pre-spoken-language people. She never had any kids of her own, never wanted any, so she's accustomed to just doing whatever she wants whenever she wants to do it, and how could she see that if she took Jack off somewhere it wasn't just them doing something together, it was her taking him away from the little weekend time he has with his son and me, and that if the Nut and I weren't invited along I was going to feel put out by that? So then Monday rolled around and it was just me and Jackson again by ourselves and again the long week stretched out before me like a mile-long Persian rug that takes a forever to roll up properly because you have to keep starting over to get the ends lined up, and I hadn't had enough selfish goofing off, getting sticky with pancake syrup and rolling around on the newspaper weekend time with my boys. It was wonderful to see her, of course, so I feel terrible about being so conflicted and ungenerous.

Me: neurotic or not? Why isn't there a site where you could vote on that? Who cares how my tattooed hide looks in a bikini when the inside of my mind looks like Barnabas Collins' cobwebby raccoon-infested potting shed? Really.

THEN, after all of that, (we're still on Monday), plus a lot of ankle-behind-the-neck yoga and a late dinner and passing out at 11:00 p.m., I woke up at 4:15 this morning and it was pitter-pat raining but the bed was cold and Jack, inexplicably, was getting dressed. It wasn't supposed to rain until tomorrow and one of his job sites wasn't water tight. So he drove off at 4:30 a.m. to crawl up onto a wet roof to cap a chimney in visquine so that a newly renovated house wouldn't be flooded and ruined. In the rain, in the dark, by himself, on a wet roof with a huge roll of plastic and a bunch of power tools with dead batteries. He came back just before 6:00, and I was glad to absorb the iciness from his ass into my sleepy warm abdominal/thigh/woohoo area. Then Jackson started yelling for me at 6:30. Please, God, how long before he's tall enough/steady enough to make a cappuccino and bring it to me in bed?

We seem to be okay today, though. Gymboree was a smash hit, I connected with a couple of hipster moms on the subject of death and malnourishment, Jackson fell asleep in the car on the way home, and I am back on the bed-making, squash-cooking, tea-drinking, PAP-smearing fast track. Zzzzz.