Dear God,

Yesterday, here in the Great Lakes state we got some nice, warm weather. Sure, it was only 40 degrees, but you know what? It might as well have been 80, because the hubster and I took the kids on a walk to Old Town and we practically skipped the whole way.

Today, though, there's a chance of snow again this afternoon. After what has arguably been the longest damned winter of my life, I have only one request for the powers that be: Can we please be done with the snow now? We have already proven how easily pleased we are with temperatures, it doesn't have to be 72 and sunny every day, just 40 and thawing. Please, please let it thaw--I can't remember what a lawn looks like. I think I speak for everyone when I say we've had enough.

Thank you in advance,
Your humble servant even though she missed church yesterday,
The Main Monkey

It's finally happened. There are no jobs in my field in Michigan--well, any that pay more than my library job.

I cannot believe this. I don't know what to do: I guess I always thought that the right job would open up for me at just the right time. But nothing has opened up, and I feel like now it's time to make my own luck, because God only knows this writing thing isn't working out.

Any ideas, Intertubes, for a struggling writer? I'll even take work from home Ponzi schemes at this point.

I found myself thinking about what I'm going to remember about these early toddler days when the kids are older. I've been told this age is the hardest, which gives me a little comfort, but that it takes almost a year to get through it. A year? Are you kidding me? I have this vision of the last poopy diaper that I will ever change, and it can't be a year away. Plus, they need to walk and talk regularly. Now.

What will be what I'll remember most of this? Am I going to remember the absolute boredom punctuated by unmanageable chaos? Will I remember the periods of time when I wanted to bolt almost every minute of every day? Will I remember how moments grind by sometimes?

Will I remember the sweetness of my son's voice saying hi? Will I remember the joy in my daughter's wiggle when I hold her and do a little dance?

Will I remember the bittersweetness of the whole thing, how glad I am that time passes, relieved, while wishing I could hold on just a little longer? Will I remember how sad it makes me that I don't have the energy to be the perfect mom, and the shame I feel that I can't live up to the label? Will I remember the shame I feel every time I turn on PBS and go into the other room to close my eyes for a minute?

Will I remember any of this? Because it's hard enough remembering it now, while sitting here writing as my children giggle incessantly in the other room.

At left: behold the felted hat! It took forever, and when I was felting it I almost lost faith due to its rapid increase in size, but it all turned out right in the end. Also behold the vaguely artistic photo layout. I call it "The Picture In Which the Blogger Figures Out How to Turn Off the Flash On the Camera She's Had for Six Months."

It's a little long, but it works.

In general angst news, I look for jobs and then do not get them. I come up with vocations and toss them aside like the books I'm not reading. I feel restless; it's time for an adventure.

Luckily enough, I smell poop from the other room. Dear God, when can I start potty training again?

So.

It's October--my favorite time of year, as you can see below. However, with the delight of crunchy leaves, apples with caramel dip and the air just smelling right comes the fact that I get a little antsy as things settle down for the winter.

One may call this angst.

So if anyone has any ideas about what I should do with my life, please pass them my way. Ideas with positive income streams take precedence over those that will just end up costing me more money.

This is the tree outside my front door. Stunning, isn't it? Trust me, it's nothing compared to the real thing.

I love autumn.

David Foster Wallace (1962-2008)

Come on, man, why did you have to hang yourself? You are one of my favorite writers. You were the one who wrote about the effects of Illinois wind on junior championship tennis--which I was familiar with from my own extremely amateur tennis days in junior high--and made me fall in love with Roger Federer. You were the one who wrote about suffocating Arizona cockroaches beneath drinking glasses and suspended my disbelief so that, for a moment, I believed in ghosts, even if they were the ghosts of avant-garde filmmakers. Seeing your name on the masthead was the last straw in turning me into a Harper's subscriber.

Man, you were the reason I decided to write my first novel. And now you're dead, you succumbed to the abyss and you did it yourself, you fucking genius you.

My novel isn't very good. It's no Infinite Jest, which I read half a life ago when I had dropped out of college and was working part-time at a big box grocery store in Kalamazoo, had just moved in with two people I didn't really know, and my life had gotten to a point of absurdity that I had to disconnect. So I spent $28 of my 100 or so dollar weekly paycheck on this mammoth, hardcover (oh, the luxury!) tome, and spent two weeks doing nothing but working and reading in various places around that unfamiliar apartment.

I cried reading that book. I hadn't cried in a long time. Even more important, one of my roommates was watching me read, was a witness to this complete absorption of attention that I was capable of, and was taking notes. He is still one of my best friends. I have one of my best friends because of that book.

Even more, after my brother enlisted in the Navy, he asked me to send him books on the ship when he was stationed in Japan. I tried to think of good books with a large quantity of pages, and ended up sending him Infinite Jest. Not only did he read it, he got several of his shipmates to read it, too, and that particular copy took on a life of its own, getting hidden in electrical equipment and being read by those who hardly ever read on shore. It turned out to be a great book for the sea.

You were the one. You were the one who made me think that maybe writing nonfiction essays would be a good idea--you made me realize that I had my own sense of self, to a point, with A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. I cheered you for your MacArthur grant, and you gave me hope. Yes, hope. That someday, I might be able to write this well. That I might be able to meet you. That I too may someday be capable of this greatness.

But if this greatness, your particular kind of greatness, means I end up putting a rope around my neck and kicking a stool out from under me, I'm going to have to think again. Why, man? Couldn't you have held on for just a little bit longer?

You know, for me?