I am a total bundle of stress today. I’m slogging through good stuff in my diss today and filling in holes. It’s close and I alternate between exhilaration and panic. I was reading last night in Noël Riley Fitch’s Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Childabout the end stages of what would become Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her husband Paul wrote to his brother,
Julie’s working like a bastid [sic] on her book — always has…but now that she actually sees the leet [sic] on the other side of the foreest and realizes that, after 8 years of slogging through the windfalls, swamps, and underbrush, she will actually emerge in a few weeks, the realization is sweeping her like a windstorm.
–Appetite for Life, p. 253
When Julia turned in her draft, she admitted to feeling “rather lost” and plunged into Norwegian classes (she had just moved to Oslo) to fill the void.
I am definitely feeling the windstorm. When it’s at my back, I simply can’t stop rushing through it. But when it’s scouring my face, it is all misery and I lose all sight of things thanks to the sand in my eyes. Right now a void sounds pretty good.
While this is going on, I’m having a hard time keeping on top of other things. I discovered today, for instance, that I had forgotten to renew the car insurance last week (easily remedied by a call to my insurance agent, thank goodness). And I also neglected to mail in my driver’s license renewal. My license expires tomorrow — a little birthday present from the state of Illinois. Thanks to my lack of organization, I’ll be celebrating my birthday at the DMV. Whoopie. Will there be cake?
However, yesterday Mr. Spy dragged me to a mall for a little birthday shopping where I found some sandals that don’t hurt my feet and some clothes I can wear to fairlywell’s shower on Saturday. I hate shopping, but it’s fun when someone makes you go. AJ was trying help me pick out clothes and I was surprised to find he has excellent taste. Just like his father.
On the way home, I was saying..something. I don’t remember what. And AJ didn’t hear it. “What?” he kept asking. I eventually got tired of repeating it. “It really wasn’t that interesting.” AJ replied, “But Mom,” (for I’m Mom now, not Mommy, except when he forgets), “everything you say is interesting.” I laughed. Hard. “No, even when you say ‘blah blah blah,’ it’s really interesting.” And that, my friends, is why AJ will have a lot of girlfriends someday.
And this evening, my next door neighbor invited me over for a pre-birthday glass of wine on her porch (is it telling that I accidentally typed “whine” just now?), which, since the weather is just about perfect (76, sunny, breezy, 0 humidity) and her garden is lovely, should be extremely pleasant.
But for now, back to the grindstone.
Posted by harri3tspy 
