The Big Fussy Festival of High School Remembrance is nearly over, I'm done talking about the strange teenage things I did that I thought would make me popular and am slowly backing into the lonely, middle-aged present once again. Whew. Time to let down the hems on all my skirts and leave the teenage boys alone. Maybe I'll go for that French professor look again: short little bangs with a chignon, snug sweaters, slim wool skirts, tottery high heels. (No, no, no, must leave teenage boys alone.) Start posting baby pictures again. Quit dreaming about being Steve Buscemi's girlfriend. (He was a postal worker and let me ride in his truck while he delivered the mail.) Eat more doughnuts, get fat, and start pestering Jackson for grandkids. He's not even two yet but who cares! Let the nagging begin!

I had my first meeting with Jack's partner/my new boss and their bookkeeper, and at last I confronted the horrifying reality of (1) trying to appear eager and interested when I'm silently worrying about whether taking a part-time job is going to turn me into a Bad Mother, (2) trying to learn a new-to-me computer spreadsheet program without looking like a slack-jawed ape, and (3) trying to follow an explanation of profit-and-loss sheets while stifling yawns and cranking up my inner cheerleader to silently bolster myself with little affirmations: "You like math! You like math! You always did well in math! This will be a snap once they stop speaking in code!" Every new job seems to come with a new vocabulary, and this one is no exception. I have absorbed a truckload of construction terms thanks to living with Jack for almost eight years, but the language of bookkeeping might as well be the language of beekeeping right now (which has some comedy potential -- "Beekeeping Bookkeepers, Tonight on Fox!").

Yesterday Jack bought Jackson a little stuffed Dalmation (we have watched 101 Dalmations about eight thousand times, but if you haven't seen it lately I'll remind you that the two main dogs are named Pongo and Perdy). Jack is now trying to teach Jackson to say "Pongo, old boy!" in a thick British nasty upper class accent. It is kind of funny and awful at the same time, like everything else in life right now, let's face it. At least taxes are over, the war has wound down to the point where I don't feel like I'm hearing the sound of fingernails over a blackboard twenty-four hours a day, and my rash is clearing up. Now if I can just get through Poetry Month without lapsing into long stretches of Alexander Pope.