Over-Reacting

After (drum roll) THE SPEECH I decided I did have to like Barack Obama better than Hillary Clinton: it was a brilliant speech; moreover, he wrote it himself so a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for writers everywhere! I'm nothing if not superficial in my choice of presidential candidates.

However, I must say I find the vast majority of Oboomers tedious to the extreme in their squawks for Hillary to get out of the race. If they think the Clinton Smear Machine is extreme, wait till the Elephants led by Sean Hannity and Russ Limbaugh pull out their Bag o' Tricks! Our boy has never been in a national campaign before. He'd better develop that Teflon hide now.

I suppose they'd rather there was a sword in a stone somewhere that he could pull out to get this whole messy business of choice over with.

In other news, overwork is certainly driving me insane. It came to a head while I was walking the dogs on the beach yesterday evening. I'd gotten up at an ungodly hour to do the various bits of putz that needed to be done for the store before heading out to my editing job for five hours and thence to the store for another six. Of course the resident teenager – on school break – had to be left alone and entirely unsupervised throughout the day, another thorn for my crown: not only am I the world's Biggest Failure as a business woman, I am also the World's Worst Mother! I write him companionable little notes before I leave: "Dear Mr. Trumble, continuing the happy tradition of maternal epistles, this morning I have two things for you to do…"

Those two things were: (1) clean his room which was such a god-awful mess it looked as though a tribe of orangutans had been partying in it and (2) meet me at 6pm so I could transport him to karate which he had managed to miss all week.

So, of course, at 6pm he is no where to be found, and it's been a loooong day. Though the store made a bit of money, I am keenly aware that our inventory is very, very low (though fortunately no potential customers seem to be aware of this fact) and I am in despair: yes, faint, faint glimmer of hope on the financial horizon, but so what? I don't feel well, I don't want to do this anymore, I want out, I'm feeling around for that Off Button in the worst possible way. But the dogs are yelping around excitedly – clearly if I am incapable of making my own life any good, at least I can improve theirs.

So I load them up in the van. The walk along the oceanfront is like the Bataan Death March. I'm thinking, Who can I call and babble to incoherently on the phone? And the answer really is, No one! because honestly at 56 years old, one should have one's life together better than this, the only phone calls one should be making are calls like, Hi! There's this fabulous new restaurant I've been reading about… wanna go? I mean, I watch those American Express ads! I know.

When I get home, Robin is sitting on the front porch. He is still wearing the clothes he first put on three days ago.

"You are so busted," I say wearily.

I've removed his computer from his room.

"You didn't have to do that," he says. "I had stuff going on that computer, downloads –"

"Look, Robin," I say. "I told you there would be consequences. Lo and behold! there are consequences."

"You over react to everything," he says.

I am too exhausted to cook so there's a Trader Joe's frozen rice bowl and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for his dinner.

I don't eat dinner. I stopped eating a few days ago. Maybe the last time Robin changed his clothes.

"So when do I get my computer back?" Robin asks.

"In a week," I say.

"I hate you," says Robin.

"Clean your room or it will be two weeks," I say.

Well, it wasn't all horror. I had a nice reconciliatory phone call with Max at whom I'd been extremely pissed because the camping trip I'd begged him to take Robin on had turned out to be a 20 mile hike to an elevation of 5000 feet that Robin did not have the physical stamina – let alone the shoes – to undertake. So that fizzled. I'd known when Robin said he wanted to go "camping" with his big brother, he was talking about maybe a four mile hike and an overnight at Pfeiffer Big Sur. Why hadn't Max?

"Robin –" I said, poking my head into his room.

"Go away," says Robin. "I hate you."

Fine. Robin hates me. The American Express Company hates me. Max and the Cannery Row Company don't hate me, they tolerate me – barely.

I stagger off to my bedroom and switch on America's Next Top Model, wondering if I'll manage to fall asleep. Ah! Sparks are flying in the land of Tyra-mail: Whitney the plus-sized model has joined forces with Lauren the punk and Claire the elegant post-modernist to put down Dominique, the Obama-colored wannabe whose every photo, unfortunately, makes her look like a suburban soccer mom. I don't even know why they bother to air these episodes, I think. It's so-o obvious that this is the year of the plus-sized model and Whitney's gonna win! And then I do fall asleep.

And some time during what seems like the middle of the night but is probably only nine-thirty, Robin comes into the room and announces, "I'm sorry, Mom. I over-reacted."

"What?" I say, startled. "Oh. 'S okay, 's okay."

And fall back down into my coma.

Tomorrow: always another day!

That's the good thing. And the bad thing.