Cleaning the Desk. Folding the Laundry.

My desk’s a mess, my laundry sits unfolded, my carpet needs vacuuming.

Little signs of mental funk.

As without, so within—and so, I am quite convinced that cleaning my desk, folding my laundry and vacuuming my carpet would be more beneficial than a Prozac prescription.

I rilly need an adventure. An adventure would blow the black mold out of the pipes.

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I hadn’t heard from Max for a couple of weeks. Which once would have been odd—for many years, we’d been in the habit of speaking weekly by phone. But the Bar exam threw off that schedule, and the phone calls never really got back on track.

Anyway, one morning a few weeks back, I woke up furious because here I’d put all that effort into setting up a website for him, and he wasn’t doing a goddam thing with it.

Just forget about the blogsite, I texted him testily. Before I even had coffee! It’s clear you’re not interested.

But I don’t want to forget about the blogsite, he texted back. It’s a great idea.

Well, it is a great idea, and I could actually write everything on it myself. But the whole point of With Justice for Some is to position him as an expert, promote his career.

Max does not do well with my sudden outbursts of Southern Italian fury. Devouring Kali mother! The womb that bore you is really a vagina dentata! Etc-cetera.

So, we stopped talking for a couple of weeks.

And then one day out of the blue, I get a long text inquiring about blog draft formatting. I reply in the most gushing of maternal terms.

More silence.

I leave a couple of voicemails.

And then last night I get an email: He’s had a rough couple of weeks. He’s feeling very burned out. He’s worried about money.

I immediately PayPal him money because what’s a mother supposed to do?

But goddam! It was his decision to move out of the House of the Virtuous Millennials into his own apartment, thereby doubling his rent. What the hell did he expect?

I think I may even have voiced some concerns to him about the move at the time—disguised as dither! Devouring Kali mother is so much less threatening when she dithers!

Of course, I was shot down in the most blistering of fashions.

And then there’s his girlfriend whom I try hard not to dislike because if I dislike her, it practically guarantees that they’ll get married, and she’ll be the mother of my unborn grandchildren! ‘Cause isn’t that the game the Universe likes to play?

Anyway, Max and gf are coming to NYC in a week.

I am luring them up to the quaint and scenic Hudson Valley for a long weekend because honestly, late July/early August when all of NYC smells like Venice in the 14th century at the height of a bubonic plague epidemic is not my favorite time for hanging out in the City. Although I may go down for a day or so. We shall see.

It’s nerve-wracking for me when he gets depressed like this.

I figure it’s my fault somehow.

And if it’s not my fault, then it makes me wonder: Were all my efforts to give him and Robin a great childhood a waste of time?

I mean, if they were predisposed to being depressive anyway, what was the point of struggling so hard to give them the foundation to be something else?

Although from things they say from time to time, I take it they do not think they had a wonderful childhood.

So, maybe I shouldn’t have tried that hard. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried at all. Maybe I should have taken the $$$$$ I spent on their childhoods and invested it in hookers and blow.

Maybe they’d be happier now.

Maybe I’d be happier now.

Maybe I should clean my desk, fold my laundry, and vacuum my carpet