swamped

Well, I leave for Boston on Friday afternoon, and I'm so behind in everything that needs to get done before I go that when I think about it, my mind just sort of whimpers and skitters away. Fortunately, I am a primate with a pen, so I have made A List, which the tenacious reader will remember is, in my thumby primate hands, A Tool For The Handy Forgetting Of Things That Need Doing.

I'm also, as I tried to explain to Spirit over lunch after a rather abortive stab at grokking the Geisha: Behind the Painted Smile exhibit at the Asian Art Museum, feeling pretty overstimulated these days. I suspect that some part of that is related to delayed or submerged grieving processes; either that, or I'm just getting old. But stuff happens, and it doesn't seem to make that much of an impression on me. I mean, I enjoy myself as it's happening, but I'm having a hard time retaining what I've seen or done. A good example would be two Sundays in a row where I went to an opera and then had another cultural experience right after (a movie, a play), and the next Monday I couldn't remember what I'd done the day before. I've got more than the usual component of books half-read. My editor tells me I'm getting a (teensy-tinsy) raise and I think, oh, that's nice, I guess and then I promptly forget to tell the people who like hearing that sort of thing, ie my mother. Earth to Indri?

Speaking of which, may I just note that it's one thing knowing that your mother's reading your blog (hi Mom)... and quite another knowing that your companion's mother (hi K) is as well? Not that I mind, it's just funny. So modern. I think all the mothers should have blogs too. Post competing grandkid photos! Again speaking of which, AX's three-year-old nephew has graciously obliged me and contributed to the floorcloth project. I don't think he really understood that I was using him mercilessly, but we had a nice time on BART designing a monster together (happily, I'd been working on my level changes in dance class, which means my thighs can handle a deep squat from El Cerrito to MacArthur station) and I am looking forward to transcribing the (striped, fanged, curly-tailed, silver-eared--the silver ears are apparently very important) result. So, ah, how is everyone else doing on their creature drawings? I'm just saying. You want that a three-year-old shows you up?

God's knees, I'm also getting tired of moving my stuff one hand-truck load at a time. AX gives me a hard time about this; who moves their stuff two boxes at a time? he asks. Well, for one thing, on a good trip I can move three boxes at a time, thankyouverymuch. Last night I discovered that I could even move my desk single-handedly, which I did; much to the amusement of the various genetic and otherwise ladies of the night hanging around all the corners I bumped over, gritting my teeth in concentration. Also, I understand that my parents made one of their moves this way, when they were young newlyweds in Chicago, except that they used my father's little red wagon to do it. So ha! I say. Ha! And now I have something like a table in the Spaceship, which sure beats eating sitting on the floor with the pot in my lap and whatever book I'm reading flapping around on the polished concrete.

Back to it.