Looking back with Lot's Wife

Home equals sweat…pants I didn’t write an article last week. I was too darned tired. I substituted at work last week as a kindergarten teacher and grade school French teacher for about half the time I used to work and I was in a coma by the time I got home. It wasn’t just the hours, although I haven’t had to stand on my feet all day without a rest for months. It was matching my clothes. It was no snacks, no nap. It was the incredible pressure of Being on Time. My whole life has been a series of resolutions and angry people waiting for me. I KNOW I’m passive-aggressive, controlling, selfish—the label list is endless for the chronically time challenged—but I never can talk myself into doing what I’m supposed to do doing until it’s too late to finish on time and then, once I’ve started, I hate to stop. Plus, I hate to wait. I HAVE SUCH A HARD TIME BEING ON TIME. So last week, it was back to being a grown-up for a few hours a day. I loved being with my old friends, I LOVE substitute teachi...

April 12, 2000 Clay and I recently went grocery shopping together for almost the first time in our 21-year march towards eternity together. You know, I took those promises that we made to love and cherish one another forever as seriously as anyone, but we were young and in love and I never imagined any test would be as hard as this! For one thing, I see grocery shopping together as the next step before we officially become Ma and Pa Kettle putzing around the yard in our matching pastel stretch knits, but SHOPPING? Shopping is the last bastion of my independence. I know if we start shopping together, Clay will take it over and it will become another “guy” project. In other words, it will become more complicated, it will never get done, and I somehow will wind up being the bad guy. All this, and I’m not too wild about going to the grocery store in the first place. My friend Ursula says that taking her husband shopping is like taking a small child somewhere. The last time they went to K-...