Tired. Fatigued. Exhausted. Overrun. Overwhelmed. Sleep deprived. Haggard. Bushed. Worn out. Knackered. Drained. Burnt- out.
Can’t find anymore synonyms to correspond with this end-of-the year feeling. You know. That feeling you get when just as you’re about to finish the last act, all the balls you’ve been juggling since September are going to come crashing down on your head. And they are made of lead. And it will hurt.
End of the year. Let me take you on a scenic tour of my brain this morning.
5 AM
Wake up at 5 AM, as per usual, after less than six hours of sleep as per usual (these days). Make my eyes open enough to pour some stale, old coffee in a mug and microwave it. Then go to the bathroom where I ungunk bleary eyes. This takes a while.
Remember that I found a couple of lice once again in daughter’s head yesterday. Again. Third treatment again. Calculate how to find the time to give her yet another treatment. Wonder vaguely about the damage lice shampoo is doing to her brain.
Make mental pros and cons list in my head: Better to have bugs or chemically induced brain-damaged child? Do not come up with an answer. Debate taking her to a hair dresser to get her hair professionally dyed purple. Do not come up with an answer.
Retrieve bitter, microwaved coffee and sit in front of my computer in a glazed stupor. Force my arms to pick up pen. Force my eyes to look at list. Check the weather.
Scratch head. Remember lice.
See the tax bill. Instead of forcing myself to write, I check our bank accounts. Do mental calculation of how we will be able to live until next paycheck.
Remember lice. Scratch my head.
Stare at piece of paper with half-finished poem. Decide to make alphabetical list of derogatory terms for females for a poem on number 7 of Tolstoy’s ten rules: Keep away from women. Particularily enjoy poontang and jackpine savage.
Remember lice. Scratch my head.
Remember out of school care bill. Find cheques for less used bank account. Write cheque and put it in prominent place for children to remember.
Lice. Scratch.
6 AM
Go for a run. Clothes still damp from yesterday’s run. I smell like a mouldy basement. Decide to go for an hour, which will make everybody late. Decide I don’t care. Need the time to mentally figure out how to get through the day.
7 AM
Arrive home and still no solution. Pack the lunches, give the cheques, make children change out of too-small clothes into clothes where they do not look like badly stuffed sausages. Make lice girl put her head up in boring braid instead of awesome hair explosion, then in a scarf. Spray both my children’s hair with the astringent homemade lice prevention mix (alcohol, lavender, tea tree oil and something else but I forgot).
Forget to do my own. Scratch.
Shower, find something nice enough to wear at graduation ceremonies at work. Graduation ends at five which means I won’t be able to go home before daughter’s graduation party. Need something that I can wear to both events as well as walk for an hour in without sweat stains showing and without wanting to kill myself out of discomfort. Don’t really succeed. Decide I don’t care. Do wear spectacular, red sandals that I bought myself for my birthday. Am pretty sure I will regret it by the end of the day.
Mental note- need something for potluck- samosas? Wine? Bread and cheese? Will I have enough time to pick something up on my way? Should I send J?Decide both. J pick up samosas, me some wine.
Do I have lice?
7:30 AM
Out the door. In the car. J drives me to work, the kids to school. Traffic like the tentacle of a dead octopus due to simultaneous construction sites on the streets of Montreal. Soon driving won’t be an option. Mentally calculate how I will get to work next week. Come up with several solutions all of which will make me late. Give instructions to family: J go to Mountain equipment coop for tent repair kit (necessary after our oldest took it with her on a hell trip to the wilds of Mont-Tremblant where she came back looking like she had been eaten alive by saber-toothed bugs and where a raccoon entered the tent twice by piercing holes in it- the girls left food in it, even after expressly being told not to.). Mentally calculate how much I should charge each girl. Kids: Go straight home after school. J give lice treatment. S prepare for graduation party. Remember to shower and use deodorant. Deodorant lost in the wilds of Mont-Tremblant. Use mine. C blow dry hair after lice treatment. Samosas for potluck. J put lice sheets in laundry. Tell daughter she will have to wash her sheets and towels everyday.
Lice. Scratch.
7:45 AM
Forced to stop issuing instructions as I have arrived at work. Let two students in who forgot their passkey. Decide not to let them in until they return their books. Retrieve very late books. Arrive at work feeling guilty for not being dressed up more. Should have tried harder.
Another ball dropped.
June. Is it over yet?
Lina Branter 
“Should have tried harder.” — That's totally going on my headstone!
Lena, This blog is a “favourite” on my tool bar. I get so excited when I see a new entry. This one is particularly brilliant.
Bronwen
Michele- I was just talking headstones with J. He thinks mine should read: Go away, I'm reading.Or alternatively, Go away, I'm dead.
I think he should carve a bas relief self-portrait and have written in Magritte cursive: Ceci n'est pas J.
Bronwen- thanks very much for the wonderful compliment. It's nice to know people actually read it.
Most days I virtually call out,
Hello? Hello? Anybody out there?
Mostly I just end up talking to myself.
I'm a regular reader too; it's always brilliant and true.
This seriously, obviously needs to be pitched as a book! They're old fashioned, but they look nice on your shelf.