Friday Report

After a two-year absence from the carpool drop-off line at Our Fine School, I'm back. The past two years, I dropped off Jack, and then Jack and Will behind the school. It was an easy, aggravation-free gig.

This year, I'm doing two drop offs, and both of them are in the carpool line, one at the lower school and one at the middle school, and I'm talking a lot of trash while I do it. It's so hard not to, especially when half of my fellow dropper-offers are chatting away on their cell phones and consequently driving like idiots.

So far, I haven't cussed. I've been good about referring to other drivers as "honey" or "sweetie," as in, "Gee, honey, you drive like an idiot," or ""Sweetie, if you don't put down that phone, I'm going to put it down for you."

I know, I know, it's such a bad example for the boys, especially Will, who's a little parrot. My only hope is that it's teaching them that paying attention while you're driving is a good idea if you don't want to incur the wrath of other drivers. Or at the very least, it's possible to vent one's rage without resorting to out and out profanity.

I think those are important lessons, don't you?

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I have been an inconsistent blogger and blogging neighbor the last few weeks. I'm working on a book, and I write in the mornings, which is usually when I blog and comment on my fellow bloggers' posts.

The writing is going well. I'm trying to treat it like a job that I'm expected to show up at every morning, not as an optional activity. I've been working steadily since the boys went back to school and am happy with what I've written. The only thing about writing steadily every morning in an empty house is that it's quite possible by the end of the fall I'll be stark, raving mad. It's not necessarily a great thing to live so firmly inside one's imagination for long stretches of time.

But it's really, really fun.

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Last night we went to yet another Parents Night at Our Fine School (middle school division). This is the last one for the year, thank goodness, and by my calculations we only have eleven more years of them.

The great thing about Middle School Parents' Night? All the parents are older. You get to see what those young moms in the preschool look like five years later. Guess what? They look really tired. They've put on a few pounds and added a few gray hairs. But they also look a lot more relaxed. Their faces are softer. Their clothes are looser. They've come to terms with the fact that gravity wins in the end.

Yes, I felt like I was among my people last night, the tired, the stressed, the chubby. Long may we reign.

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Have a great weekend. Be kind to yourself. Eat some cake. Eat all the cake. What the hey.