So on a typical Monday here in the suburbs:

1. Lily (12) starts seeing a therapist and texts me, “My therapist said I shouldn’t worry about finishing my homework tonight.”
2. Charlotte (10) is caught moping over the kitchen island drawing another picture like this:
3. I learn I have a different client at work for reasons no one can really talk about (and I don’t want to either).
4. A ~$6M error is discovered on one of the KPI’s (key performance indicators) for a report I’m distributing (one version of 11, but order of magnitude is ~$12B so root cause isn’t material).
5. I offer to get a smoothie for Lily at the Whole Foods on my way home and spend about $72 on:
   1. Smoothie for Lily and Charlotte ($1.99 ea., on sale)
   2. A bottle of Pfriem IPA
   3. A .500 mL flask of Norwegian Cod Liver Oil ($55)
      1. Small talk with the cashier: “I used to think that’s about the cost of a good bottle of Scotch but had to think about what I’m really putting into my body and it’s worth it” (right)
6. Charlotte, sulking over the fact that Lily’s gone to nana’s for dinner, can only be roused by the act of going out to Happy Hour at the sushi place, where we bump into the same, despondent family of friends we saw last time, and makes me wonder do they really go there a lot or is it just us?
7. Dawn interrupts my driving with text photos of the food she’s confronted with on a business dinner and can’t eat because it’s got either dairy, grains, legumes, flour, sugar, wheat, gluten, or something in it not meat/vegetable/fruit or nuts, basically.
8. Charlotte takes a bath for the first time on her own volition.
9. Something outside smells sweet, like spring, and I point out the small buds to Charlotte on the Magnolia tree, at the neighbor’s, and she yanks on a branch to tear one out.
10. The 3-week-old battery on the Volvo is starting to hesitate because the mechanic told me the alternator is about to go, and that will fry a new battery in like, 3-4 weeks.

Earlier this week, in the midst of not having anything to write about, I wrote:

When all that fascination falls away, the world just looks like a replica of itself, plastic and small.

Categories: humor, Memoir, writing

Tags: American suburbs, Brutal Ardour, Discreet Music, journal writing, Memoir, parenting, William Pearse writer, writers block