The Po Show

A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

As we are almost settled in here, what with Matthew finished with his first five days of school (since they started on a Thurs. and this week had two days off for Rosh Hashanah), and Tessa having gone to one whole day of nursery school (since she fell dead asleep on the way there the second day and could not be roused, and then had a day off for R. H.) and some semblance of a schedule is materializing out of the chaos that has reined in our lives since we moved here six weeks ago, my thoughts begin to turn to (gasp!) what I'm going to do with myself here. [Damn! That was a lengthy sentence that could almost rival Joan Didion!]

I just don't know. I'll go insane if I don't intellectually engage myself in SOME way. Davis is still a bad memory. That was a bad, bad year in most ways, not the least of which was that I did not adjust to the SAHM thing very well. I bitched about my job last year an awful lot, but it was still nice having a job and talking to adults everyday, and having quiet time, and at least occasionally being intellectually stimulated. The last month I was there, during which a great new post-doc arrived, was really wonderful. We had some fabulous conversations about science and research and life in general.

So what to do now? I am child-free for two and a half hours, three days a week. Hmm. That's not a lot of time. It's like last year when my friend Jill's second son started nursery school. She said all kinds of people asked her, "So are you going back to work now?"

She'd answer, "I'm free from 9:00 to 11:00, three days a week. Yeah, gimme some work."

Of course, additional childcare could be arranged for Tessa. But I'm caught in the whole It's-all-me-now scenario. Ross is gone for 13 hours a day. And really GONE, in that he's way out in the city, a half hour train ride away, plus to and from the station time. And he's not really at liberty to stay at home when the kids get sick anymore. I've been used to having a spouse with at least a relatively flexible schedule, and I don't have one anymore.

I've flung myself headlong into this ebay thing (mostly because it's become my obsession du jour, or de l'annee (leila, I'm sure I got that wrong :))), and I've currently got 113 items up for sale. Yes! I'm INSANE!!!! But even if I spend untold hours and make $500 a month, is that really enough?

I just don't know. I do know that I got all excited yesterday when I realized that they screwed up on my Paxil prescription and put down one more refill when I'm not supposed to get any more refills. I was afraid I was going to have to go find a new shrink, or at least a GP who was willing to give me more refills. Now I get one more month to put it off.

I don't think it's chemicals that are my problem anyway.

My problem is me.