... Or Is It a Tumble Down the Stairs?

A riddle. What has no eyes, one “i”, seven “ays”, and sucks?

This week.

“Calm before the storm” I said last time. “Keep meddling” I said last time. What the hell was I thinking? I know this routine! My kids know this routine! Even the crickets in the basement know this routine! Every time I know I’m doing well, every time I know the path is smooth, the potholes gone – especially when I brag about it! – suddenly, from nowhere, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer moves, the Sword of Damocles slips, the … the … the Dominoes of Death (shut up, I’m on a roll) tilt and rock. Every stinking time I get comfortable, life flings itself into the toilet and sets the auto-flush.

What happened? Let’s start with “the routine.”

You know by now I need a system. I have actually been called “Rut Girl” from time to time in years past. I missed the impulsive, unexpected girl I was, however, and so I’ve been working hard to revive her from her long, Snow-White-like sleep – in chunks, so as to maintain balance. Rut Girl has been … decentralized. But she serves a purpose. The way my attention span shortens and lengthens with the fall of a dust mote, the way my focus careens from shoulder to median to beyond the horizon, my basic personality demands a well-worn groove just to maintain the day-to-day. I have routines. I need routines. Routines are my friends. They keep me balanced, and prevent me from losing track of gravity and so spinning off the planet with the centrifugal force of my own personality.

Every day, I write in my notebook (“morning pages,” Julia Cameron calls them in her wonderful book, The Artist’s Way). Then I head to the computer, where I answer emails and grade essays (for my tutorials and classes), enter all my daily contests, and surf in search of info on investments, rocks and gems, cooking (old passion, new possibilities), and local sales. I work on these posts or read others’ blogs, too. Afterward, I will take care of household things (checkbooks balanced, bills paid, picking up done, dishes, dinner, all the minutiae of every life) and work on special projects (yard work, pulling for the Extravaganza). Then I go to my paying job, and see students from 2 to 10 hours, six days a week. In between, I hunt for treasures, I relax with a book or magazine, I sort junk drawers as therapy (okay, also built up as therapy).

So what happened? This ..............................

And this.

I have to fill in that clay-lined hole (apparently I promised the Big Lug I wouldn’t tear into his lawn). And I found out just how ugly my front stoop really was.

We pulled lots of crap for the basement (pictures of the pile when I actually care), but there’s so much more there than I had imagined that I was overwhelmed. (Plus, that saw-laden tumble was just the beginning - I sucked in a dust ball that was spiked with something abrasive that gave me a sick headache all week). There's not enough stuff in the universe to fix this driveway!

Also, I went to Weight Watchers this week and gained nearly half a pound (that pint of Haagen Dazs had nothing to do with it!), got all cranky and weepy (that pint of Haagen Dazs had nothing to do with it), and – and! – home sales in my neighborhood are down nearly 40 percent from just 18 months ago, and 20 percent from the first of the year – not to mention the stock markets are down, too. Bottom line is that I feel like I’ve been doing everything right and nothing is following suit.

It’s not fair.

Maybe it’s menopause, maybe it’s biorhythms or the cycles of the stars … or some giant celestial chess game.

Or maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. Maybe it’s the step back toward the edges I need right now, a new view in order to gain perspective from inside the whirling center of the ever-increasing pace of this quest.

Nah. Sometimes things just suck.

Pass the Kleenex.