dear m,

It’s been too long since my last letter. It’s a magazine deadline week, so if I’m not busy working on meeting said deadline, I’m busy procrastinating. Thank you for your contributions to this procrastination effort with offers to harvest the FarmTown Jungle. It seems like I had a bunch of money from this last time, enough to build a new version of NeverLand, and I did spend it on… something. But I don’t know what. And yet I still don’t have enough to buy a manor house.

I can’t remember all the events of this past week, so I’ll work backwards from today. Went to see “Fame” with girls, and well it was a fun movie, but underdeveloped all around and cobbled together as though with scotch tape. I did like the dancing and singing and such. But wanted to know more about pretty much everything.

Oh, and I took the children to church this morning. Is this a separate post/email? I feel like it is. We will return next week, is all I’ll mention for now. I’m simultaneously trying to wrap my brain around these matters and attempting to shut my brain off? If that makes sense. I can’t say way either approach is working. I’m thinking: not yet.

Yesterday, oh yesterday. I clipped coupons in the morning, found one for Jersey Mike’s sub sandwiches and rushed out to get some before my haircut. All these trivial forces of the Universe combined so that I would park in the spot right next to two empty spaces, into which an old lady driving a Lincoln would pull, badly misjudging time and distance and scraping up the side of my car. Erg. Ugh. Another lady followed me out to tell me after I paid for the sandwiches, and so it was like “oh.” *defeated.* And then the old lady came out, and admitted to it, and was basically unfazed-seeming, but from my perspective covering up embarrassment? Sadness. She had a whole pile of cards and couldn’t find her insurance, and so I got her digits and J.Lo called today… It will be taken care of sometime soon, but mainly it’s just a badly-timed moderately-sized pain in the ass.

But I did get my haircut. And as always, it was done fabulously. Although my hairstylist did get into a tussle with a neighboring hairstylist over a curling iron, and for a few long moments it was like, um, *awkward…*

On tap for this week: Return to the gym? Because I’ve been a big, giant slacker. Deadline Tuesday, have one more article to write. Prepare for N.Lo’s b-day party on Saturday, which means going to the store and buying some things and also making about 1,000 Elmo cupcakes, for which I’m excited. And perhaps a side project if there’s time: sorting through N.Lo’s clothes, deciding what he needs, and hitting the store. And picking up socks for J.Lo and maybe some shirts for me while I’m at it. Maybe. Oh, and purchase advance tix for the Toy Story double feature, which I’d like to attend with the children, but probably next week. And a return to Little Dipper on Wednesday with some cool Managers I know. Busy. Busy. More busy. But fun? Lots of fun. Yes.

In the meantime, I’m ebay bidding on an extra camera body for a Canon Eos Elan (an “advanced amateur” film camera that will possibly trump the current quality of my pictures, or at least will be fun and different to use), so I can fix the bottom piece? It’s all an experiment. We will see.

My complicated daughter hasn’t been sleeping, and my happy-go-lucky son has received a personality transplant from the Twoville offices.

I ponder Halloween options, and have currently landed on go-go dancer, but could just as easily be vampire, or whatever. There are options. There is time.

Lastly, the weather should be off and on cool this week, which I thoroughly love.

And tasty lettuce in the garden.

hugs, kisses,

pen