Three Completely Unrelated Entry Points

1. Eats, Shoots, and Leaves was fabulous. Just fabulous. It made me laugh and it made me think. And it taught me a few things about punctuation that I could never have verbalized before, but knew were important rules and conventions. Plus it made me feel cool for being a total grammar geek. Can't ask for much more than that. Just for the record, however: I do not want to hear about every punctuation mistake I make from here on in. It will just depress me to know that I've fallen short of Lynne Truss's high standards.

2. This is Day 7 of Major Panic Attack #2. I am trying to contact my doctor to see what we can do, medication-wise, to MAKE THIS GO AWAY. I continue to try and find a therapist who will actually, you know, take on patients while at the same time accepting my insurance. You'd think it wouldn't be quite this hard. You'd be wrong. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: It's ridiculous how hard it is to get help, especially when you're dealing with mental illness. Just when you're at your lowest point, least able to deal and all that jazz, that's when you're expected to make a dozen phone calls, deal with secretaries and voice mails, figure out what the best course of action is and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. No wonder so many of us wind up in dire straits. I'm a phone phobic at the best of times. When I'm tingling from head to toe because I haven't been able to take a full breath in a week, I'm not exactly at the top of my game. It's frustrating as hell, it is. I'd scream, but the weight on my chest won't let me draw in a deep enough breath.

3. Em's in soccer camp this week, apparently having the time of her life. Today was face-paint day, or something like that. She insisted that I needed to paint her face this morning so that she could win a prize. So I drew a soccer ball on one cheek, a net on the other, and wrote SOCCER! across her forehead, all in eyeliner. That was all well and good, except that then mini Em, aka N, insisted on having the same done to him. I complied. But when we got to preschool, he grew suddenly very self-conscious. His teachers were all giggling and making a fuss over him and that freaks him out a bit, so he insisted on having me wash it off. Too bad. He looked absolutely edible, with his new short haircut and his soccer-ball cheeks.