I’m not trying to sound pompous or anything. I mean, the year just started. But our failing is pretty legendary. If you had seen us at the end of last school year, you’d know that we were the parents who stopped signing our kids’ folders in November. I hesitate to say this, because I don’t want to jinx us so early on in the year, but I’m incredibly proud of how we hit the ground running this year.
My boys have been in school for three whole weeks and we are still signing folders. If you knew how many folders there were, you would think this was quite an accomplishment, too. In fact, I’ll just tell you, so you can celebrate right along with us.
The fourth-grader has an agenda that needs to be signed when he finishes his homework and another folder that needs to be signed when I actually see his graded homework, which is a little up in the air, because he’s like the nutty professor and doesn’t always remember to bring this one home. The second grader has a book list that must be filled in with every single thing he wants to read in the afternoon, which is actually quite a lot. He also has an agenda that should be signed after his homework is completed. The first grader has a book folder, an agenda, and a behavior chart. I give out a lot of autographs every day.
Not only that, but in the first weeks of school, the boys inevitably come home with a billion papers I’ve already filled out, because, it turns out, the school’s online system, which I used so my hand wouldn’t get cramped up, isn’t displaying vital information correctly. So I had to fill out the papers with a pen anyway. It’s a good thing I had a little practice, because some of the questions are hard. Emergency contact number? I can’t hold numbers in my brain anymore.
I know it’s still early in the stages of the school year and that the papers will continue to exponentially increase, as will the signatures, but Husband and I created a solid system this year that includes a place for everything, a whole bunch of file folders to keep things safe and some new expectations on the boys.
Husband and I are creative people, and we spent a lot of time this year thinking about how to appear more successful at organization, because we didn’t want to further prove the fallacy that all creative people are unorganized. It’s mostly not true. So I went a little overboard on the office supplies. I filled a jar with pens, because our excuse last year was mostly that we couldn’t find a pen to sign anything and it was totally true. I labeled a file folder for homework, because the excuse, “My little brothers ate my homework” was actually a possibility in our house. This year, the homework and pens have moved where little hands can’t reach them.
And, probably most important of all, we’ve begun to expect our boys to not only pack up their things, which they did last year, but also make their own lunches. Sure, one is barely six and still has trouble distinguishing between a fruit and a vegetable (especially when it comes to tomatoes), but they’re smart kids and fully capable, as I suspect every kid is. Sometimes we make things harder on ourselves, when we could, instead, delegate a task to a perfectly competent kid.
[Tweet “We make things harder on ourselves when we could, instead, delegate a task to a competent kid.”]
So here are my best tips for winning at school:
1. Get organized, whatever that looks like for you. Maybe it’s not a billion working pens and a box of file folders. But find what works and do it.
2. Make kids do things for themselves. It’s empowering for kids to do things for themselves, no matter how much they complain about it at the time. I’d rather be playing too, kids. We all work together.
3. Designate a time for the signing of folders or checking of homework or whatever it is that needs doing. If the time isn’t designated, it won’t happen.
I’m sure Husband and I will be a little winded by the time November rolls around, but, for now, I’m determined to stay on top of things, and we are, thanks to file folders, a jar with pens that actually write and extra help from our fully capable boys.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this inside look at my life and family. Every Friday, I publish a short blog on something personal that includes a valuable takeaway. For more of my essays and memoir writings, visit Wing Chair Musings.
This week my video show, On My Shelf, is celebrating one year. If you were to look at followers and number of views and stats that all the business people tell us mean something important, you wouldn’t be able to tell that I’d been doing this for a year.
As I crept up on this one-year anniversary of producing a show that first began as a weekly show and more recently became a weekday show, I found myself mired down a little by these statistics. I don’t usually check statistics because, honestly, they don’t really matter that much to me. I do what I do because I love it. Because I have to. Because there is no other choice for me but to share books and advice and life so that others might find themselves in the things I have to say or feel encouraged and inspired, or, at the very least, find their next great read.
So I don’t often check statistics. But an anniversary is also a time to consider what’s working and what’s not. I have a lot on my plate as a writer. I publish five blogs a week. I publish five videos a week. I write at least 50,000 words of fiction and nonfiction every week. I have six children. I have a husband. I have a life outside of my career. Producing this video show eats away hours of my time every single week.
The statistics of it started weighing me down a little. Writers are constantly battling the ups and downs, the victories and the not-quite-victories, the visible and the invisible. I started to question the value I had to offer. I started to question what I was possibly doing wrong. I started to question whether I should do it at all anymore.
This isn’t the first time I’ve asked myself all these questions. Periodically, I’ll find myself in this pervasive state of invisibility, and it’s not easy to climb out from under that cloak. But what it always boils down for to me is that I create value so that, in the future—whether I see the results of that now or not—someone will find my content and their world will shift a little for the better. I’m not doing any of this for notoriety or fame or even the coveted viral spot on the Internet. I’m doing it because it’s vital to my life. Without it, I’m a little less me.
(And it has to be the same for all of us. Creativity for creativity’s sake.)
But even if it didn’t boil down to that, it would boil down to another concept that’s become important in everything I do for my writing career. I like to call it the Long Game. The Long Game is exactly what it sound like—long. It means that whatever success looks like for me—and sometimes, I admit, that’s hard to define, because sometimes the world steps in and says it should be number of books sold and number of views on a video and number of visitors to a blog—but whatever success looks like, it’s not going to happen overnight.
We do not become brilliant writers overnight. One essay, one story, one idea doesn’t make us brilliant. We become brilliant in the work, the every-day creation of those multiple essays and multiple stories and multiple ideas developed into whatever it is they become.
This is a long, long game.
[Tweet “We do not become brilliant writers overnight. This is a long, long game.”]
The Internet and its visibility likes to lure us in and say things have changed in recent years, but they haven’t. Writing has always only been a Long Game. The ones who show up every day and work in spite of who’s reading or watching or listening—they’re the ones who will become brilliant.
[Tweet “The writers who show up every day and do the work are the ones who will become brilliant.”]
A writing career is like a Giant Himalayan lily. Do you know about this flower? For most of its life, it exists as a clump of shiny leaves, but after five to seven years it almost magically grows nearly 10 feet and unfolds its trumpet-shaped flowers for the first time. It becomes beautiful, noticeable, brilliant.
Next week I’ll talk about some practical applications of this. But, for now, remember the old adage “slow and steady wins the race.” Persevere. Even when no one is paying any attention. And maybe, if we’re both lucky, we’ll see each other under our invisibility cloaks and wave and give a thumbs up and carry on our separate ways.
Whether or not you want to become a parent is relatively easy to decide. Those tiny little babies. So cute. So cuddly. So snuggly and soft and warm. Smelling of…
Well, everything nice, of course.
So when it came time for Husband and me to discuss the possibility of starting a family, it wasn’t such a hard decision. I wanted one of those tiny cute cuddly babies. It was time.
What you don’t consider before you decide to have a baby is that one day that baby will be a willful 3-year-old. And then he’ll be a spirited 8-year-old. And then she’ll be, God help you, 13.
It’s not just the emotional and physical expenditure that will change as your tiny little baby, who only wants to eat and sleep and poop and stays put wherever you lay him, grows. Your entire lifestyle will change. We weren’t ready for this. I don’t know if any parent is, because these are the things you don’t think about when all you can see is BABY.
I think about them now. Every time I get a utility bill in the mail or shop for groceries or just try to do something as simple as leaving the house.
What you don’t think about is that when your baby becomes a kid, there’s
The much higher utility bills.
You won’t notice this one right away, because, well, babies stay put. They don’t know how to turn on lights, which is your saving grace for a couple of years. You won’t run into this problem until your kid gets really good at turning on lights but doesn’t as quickly figure out how to turn them off. Or ever figure it out, which is more likely the case. You’ll leave the house following behind Kid 1 while Kid 2 follows behind you, looking for something. And everyone knows that to look for something, you need lights.
Someday, when the baby is no longer a baby, he will also enjoy plugging up a toilet with toilet paper so he has to flush five times in a row and the toilet never fills up so it runs for half an hour before you notice. He’ll forget to completely turn off the bathroom faucet after he’s finally, finally, finally brushed his teeth after your thirtieth reminder, and it will run all night, because you were too worn out to stumble out of your bed, again, to check. He’ll one day be 3 and think it’s funny to see your face turn purple when he sneaks into the backyard and lets the water hose run, and the only way you know is when you’re going out to put the trash in the bin and you slip in a gigantic mud puddle and call Husband home because a sprinkler has busted and you don’t know what to do (Nope. It’s just the 3-year-old, watering the grass. For five hours).
Higher utility bills. There’s not much you can do about them, unless you cancel all your utilities and Little House on the Prairie it.
The grocery bill that will make you weep.
It doesn’t matter if you’re breastfeeding or bottle feeding, you are in for a treat. You won’t even recognize your grocery budget in a few years. Kids are always, always, always hungry, always, and you certainly don’t want them bumming food off their friends at school, because you know what happens when they get sugar in their system. (What happens? Read on.)
The fact that bouncing off the walls is a real thing.
You will watch them do it after attending their friend’s birthday parties. You’ll see the evidence in wall nicks and holes their hands accidentally made in doors when they ran into it too hard, and you’ll make a mental note to fix them all, but it will never happen. Because kids. And then you will vow never, ever to let them go to another birthday party. And then another invitation will come three days later, because they’re in kindergarten and all twenty-five students have birthdays, and they have to invite everyone in their class, because this is school rules. Kids’ self esteem is precious, you see.
And, because he got an invitation and he sometimes talks to the girl in class, you will, in the end, let him go to another birthday party, thus beginning the cycle all over again.
The gross, gross and grosser.
You will do grosser things than you ever thought you’d do. Ever. Because sometimes there will be a little boy who took his favorite Lightning McQueen car to the potty with him, because Lightning “wanted to watch,” and now he’s sitting in the toilet your boy just went #2 in, and you will have to reach your hand into that stank and pull Lightning back out. Getting a new one just won’t do. Plus, remember the higher utility bills? Yeah, that goes for clogged pipes, too. Close your eyes and fish it out. There’s soap for that. Lots and lots of soap.
You may also be sitting enjoying a lovely dinner with friends when your 18-month-old starts upchucking something that looks like a cross between a cauliflower smoothie and no-butter mashed potatoes, and, rather than let it fall on the floor and make someone else clean it up with their handy mop and bucket, your reflexes will make you catch it. In your hands. Your bare hands. Your bare hands that just stuck a fry in your mouth. (You’ll never see those “friends” again, by the way. They don’t have kids. They don’t understand.)
And you may quite possibly open a door to a poop explosion every other day if you have twins who think it’s funny to take their diapers off and time their bowel movements for the exact moment they’re supposed to be sleeping for naps, and you will have to scrub it off all the cracks they’ve made in their cribs. Don’t worry. There’s soap for that, too.
The energy it takes to keep a house tidy.
It’s not even worth it. They’ll just undo all your work anyway. Hang up their winter jacket on the peg where it goes? In five minutes they’ll decide they want to wear it in the “fall-ish” weather that blew in, bringing temperatures from 125 to 115 degrees. Get their school papers all organized and nice? They’ll want to show you something they made in school today, and it’ll all end up on the floor anyway. Have a place for their shoes? Doesn’t matter. They won’t end up there. Save your energy for others things. Like putting them back in bed four hundred times.
The paradoxical emotions.
There is the one minute where you feel angry enough to strangle your 3-year-old because, for the four billionth time, he marked in a library book while you were watching, just to do it, and then there’s the moment (after ten minutes of cool down and maybe a bottle glass of wine) when he brings you the library book and asks you to read to him, and his eyes are so dang beautiful, and yes, of course you’ll do this for your precious little baby. There’s the second where you want to lock them out of your room forever and ever and ever because they keep coming in to ask questions like “Do penguins have knees” and “Why can’t we have four dogs” and “How did I get out of your body when I was a baby,” and all you know is you want to go to sleep, and then there is that other second where he comes in one more time and you take a deep breath and all he wants is another kiss and hug you don’t often get anymore because he’s getting too big too fast.
There’s the moment when you can’t stand the sight of him because he just ate his brother’s vitamins he knows he’s not supposed to touch (you’ve done this dance half a million times), and then there’s the other moment when you can’t stand how much you love him.
You’ll get used to these moments as a parent.
The torturous road trips.
Soon, going anywhere outside a ten-mile radius of your home will feel like torture. This is mostly because of the question, “Are we almost there?” which will come out of their mouths exactly five minutes after packing in the car. And since you haven’t even left the driveway, you’ll know it’s going to be a really long trip. This question will be asked every other minute for as long as it takes to get you anywhere. So just keep the travel short, if you know what’s best for you. And if this question doesn’t bother you so much, there will be other things. I Spy, for example. And Disney songs. And farts in an enclosed space.
The impossible: Leaving the house.
You’re all dressed and put together and ready to go? All of you at the same time? Well, congratulations, because someone’s about to puke all over himself. You made it out to the car and everyone’s strapped? Someone will say his shoes aren’t actually in the van like he thought, and could you help him find a pair, and you’ll spend the next forty-five minutes looking for the matches to five lone shoes. You’re about to walk out the door on time for once? Someone will discover how to open their Thermos of milk and dump it all over their brother’s backside.
Late just comes with being a parent. Don’t let anyone tell you any different, and don’t let anyone make you feel guilty about it, either. They have no idea what it’s like to leave with neanderthals in tow.
That feeling you get.
No, I’m not talking about the anger or the frustration or the fear that maybe we shouldn’t have done what we did. I mean the overwhelming emotion that hits us every time they’re doing something amazing or wonderful or they say something brilliant or funny or they’re just sitting there doing nothing. It’s that feeling of love that launches us through all these unforeseen challenges.
So I guess if I’m weighing the options, I’d have to say that The Feeling outweighs all the rest.
But ask me again in a few years, when my grocery bill exceeds my housing payment.
This is an excerpt from Parenting is the Hardest Insane Asylum Ever, which does not yet have a release date. For more of Rachel’s humor writings, visit Crash Test Parents.
I recently finished two adult literary novels that will probably disturb you a bit—because that’s exactly what they did to me.
A God in Ruins, by Kate Atkinson, is the sequel to Atkinson’s 2014 masterpiece, Life After Life. A God in Ruins follows the story of Teddy, who is the sister of the heroine in Life After Life. In Life After Life, it seems as though Teddy has been killed in World War I, but in A God in Ruins, Teddy is alive and well, creating his own sad life. The book follows a very non-linear path but always has Teddy at the heart of it. He is a war hero and has come home to begin a family of his own.
A God in Ruins follows the meandering path of Teddy’s life, marriage, children, grandchildren and, eventually, death. Teddy never expected to live after the war, but he did, and throughout his living, he struggles to make it a good life. It was an epic story about love, family and what happens when a good man is given a second chance at life.
Atkinson did a fantastic job highlighting the difference between generations by showing thoughts and beliefs from Teddy and his wife; Teddy’s daughter, Viola; and his grandchildren Sunny and Bertie. This was probably my absolute favorite feature of the book. Atkinson skipped through viewpoints so that readers could experience life from all the different generations. I found it fascinating. Viola and her husband were hippie-types, while Teddy and his wife were the more conservative type that was typical of the World War I generation. And his grandchildren were bearing the scars from all the neuroses of the previous generations and believing, sometimes naively, that they’d be able to do better. I thought it was an accurate portrayal of the world’s generations today.
Though it was long and, at times, a little meandering, I enjoyed A God in Ruins. And the end has a twist that will likely surprise you.
I initially picked up I’m Thinking of Ending Things, by Iain Reid, because of its intriguing cover. I thought it looked promising, and it definitely delivered. This book was a fantastic literary thriller that I could not put down. It’s a small book, only about 62,000 words, and it definitely went quick. But it was fantastic all the way through it.
I don’t want to give to much away in my summary, so I’ll just say that the book is about a woman taking a trip with her boyfriend, considering the entire drive whether or not she should end things with him. The significance of all her conversations and rumination will come crashing in once you reach the end of the story.
There were so many things I liked about this book. Probably one of the most significant, at least for me, was the length. I love when adult books are short, because I don’t have a whole lot of time to read an epic book, and most of the time, when I do read a 700-pager, I usually reach the end thinking that what it needed was a good editor. Long doesn’t necessarily mean better. I’ll just throw that out there.
Reid is a master at communicating only enough of what you need to know.
I also loved that as the story progressed, so did my sense of unease and dread. I knew something bad was going to happen, but it was little subtle clues that unfolded it for me. Reid wasn’t obvious in any way. I thought I’d guessed something, and then he’d twist it around. I second guessed myself. I second guessed the characters. That’s when you know it’s a good thriller.
One of the other aspects of the book that I really enjoyed was that every now and then the narrator would philosophize on family and relationships and death—the deep things. It made for interesting breaks from the increasing sense of dread.
As soon as I was done with this one, I put it on Husband’s to-read shelf, because I knew he would enjoy it. It’s one of those books that’s like a seed. It will sit inside you for a while, and it will take a while to unfold and bloom, but when it does, watch out. You’ll be looking at everybody differently.
Here’s the opening of the book. (You’ll have to go out and read it now—how could you not?)
“I’m thinking of ending things.
“Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It dominates. There’s not much I can do about it. It doesn’t go away. It’s there whether I like it or not. It’s there when I eat. When I go to bed. It’s there when I sleep. It’s there when I wake up. It’s always there. Always.”
And here’s one of my favorite philosophical asides:
“I think what I want is for someone to know me. Really know me. Know me better than anyone else and maybe even me. Isn’t that why we commit to another? It’s not for sex. If it were for sex, we wouldn’t marry one person. We’d just keep finding new partners. We commit for many reasons, I know, but the more I think about it, the more I think long-term relationships are for getting to know someone. I want someone to know me, really know me, almost like that person could get into my head. What would that feel like? To have access, to know what it’s like in someone else’s head. To rely on someone else, have him rely on you. That’s not a biological connection like the one between parents and children. This kind of relationship would be chosen. It would be something cooler, harder to achieve than one built on biology and shared genetics.
“I think that’s it. Maybe that’s how we know when a relationship is real. When someone else previously unconnected to us knows us in a way we never thought or believed possible.”
I hope you enjoyed these book recommendations. Be sure to pick up a free book from my starter library and visit my recommends page to see some of my favorite books. If you have any books you recently read that you think I’d enjoy, contact me. I always enjoy adding to my list. Even if I never get through it all.
In this episode of On My Shelf, Rachel talks about a valuable writing resource that will help you transform your manuscript into something that’s highly marketable.
“How are you today?” one of your mom friends asks as she passes you in the hallway of your sons’ elementary school.
You fire back the typical, expected response. “Doing well,” you say, even though, if one were to open up the heart of you, one would see that you are not, in fact, doing well. But it’s too complicated. Too raw. You don’t know her well enough. These are the excuses you offer yourself as you pass by, on your way back home with 4-year-old twins clutching a stroller holding a 19-month-old.
The truth is, you’re incredibly lonely.
Not lonely in the sense of your marriage is rocky or your relationships with your kids aren’t healthy or you have nobody and no one on the planet. You are lonely in one sense only: You are a parent of young children.
It’s so hard being a parent of young children.
It’s hard to find time for practically anything, especially socializing, because all your time is consumed with kids, and all your nights are consumed with making sure they get enough sleep, and all your days are consumed with signing school folders and folding clothes and tidying up a house that gets ransacked in half an hour of kids being home and often doesn’t even take that long to look like a thief broke in and rifled through all the art supplies.
You don’t have much opportunity to make friends or cultivate friendships, because it’s too much work to get everyone packed up in the car, and then, when you’ve finally got the little ones strapped in and ready to go, you don’t really feel like going anymore, because one fought you for half an hour on which shoes he wanted to wear, and one of the older ones is still MIA, in the house packing up all his stuff, because he wants to take a thousand Pokemon cards with him, even though you’ve tried to explain that the kids at your friends’ house aren’t old enough to be interested in Pokemon, and another just shouted that he hates you, because you’re making him buckle his seat belt, which he always has to do, and he’d apparently rather die. Or maybe just run away.
So it’s a very lonely place where you find yourself, because no one has time to talk, except about what’s simmering on the surface, and you get really used to exchanging those pleasantries like “Hey, let’s get together soon,” and then it never happens, because life is busy and parenting is hard and sleep looks a little more inviting at this point. And before you know it, you realize that the only real friends you have are a 19-month-old and two 4-year-olds, because the others are in school and no one ever calls you anymore, not even your sister, and you don’t go anywhere, because you’re not all that big on play dates, and who needs friends anyway? That’s what you’ll tell yourself, because you’d rather not think about what you’re missing.
This stage of parenting is hard. It really is.
Kids are constantly talking to you, and you’re constantly talking back to them, trying to address discipline issues, trying to discuss what’s happening tomorrow, trying to shush them while you go over logistics with your partner, because the only time they really want to talk to you is the moment you say, “Let’s talk about that real quick” with another adult.
This stage of parenting has attitudes and dirty socks and kids trying to fight over who gets to have technology time on the iPad first, and there’s limiting of screens and trying to get them all outside for enough hours in the day so you can actually breathe without someone breathing back into your mouth, and there’s feeding them and feeding them and feeding them again, because this is pretty much the story of your life. And when the day is all done, you’ll sit on the edge of your bed, staring at a nick in your wall that one of the kids put there accidentally with his foot, and you’ll wonder what in the world you were thinking, having all these kids.
Sure, it’s a whirlwind. You’ve heard it said—the days are long, but the years are short. You’ve seen it in motion, because how is it, exactly, that he’s now 9 years old? How it is, exactly that you’re now in your thirties? How is it, exactly, that you’ve gone three months without calling your sister?
Time flies. And yet doesn’t. It’s a mystery to every parent on earth.
You feel lonely, because not only do you never get out, but no one ever talks about the hard parts of parenting. They just all make it look easy. Which makes you feel a little guilty. And probably them, too. Because, really, they’re just like you.
Your body aches when you get up in the morning and when you go to bed at night, because kids will smash you like a steam roller and then hit reverse and do it again. And, also, it’s not easy getting older. Your bones will sometimes feel like they’re coming apart.
You have to deal with arguing and sassing and kids growing teeth at the same time other kids are losing teeth and what should you do about the tooth fairy, and should you let them believe in Santa Claus, and should you tell them about their grandparents and divorce and what that even means? You have to deal with the craziness of impulsiveness like trying to walk up stairs with roller blades on and trying to dig a hole to the earth’s mantle in your backyard and deciding it would be fun to fly with a skateboard off the back porch. You’re dealing with extravagant messes, because kids are slobs.
You’re also battling guilt, all the time. You feel guilty for not spending enough time with your kids, and you feel guilty for spending too much time with your kids, because your partner needs you, too, and you’re feeling guilty about pursuing a career outside the home, or you’re feeling guilty about not pursing a career outside the home, or you’re feeling guilty about not breastfeeding or not co-sleeping or that one time or four thousand times you yelled. You try to achieve balance, but it’s always just out of reach.
You’re exhausted. You’re too young to be this exhausted, but the fact is, you are. You make it to the end of the day, and that’s really saying something.
You encounter important decisions—should I make them this for breakfast? Should I talk to the teacher about a bully? Should I send my child to school, or should I homeschool? Should I quit working, or should I keep working?
You’re watching some friends get divorced and others take a break, or flourishing in a way that doesn’t really seem possible for you and your partner right now. How do they do it? What happened to the others? Will it happen to you?
You’re probably thinking, in the back of your mind, that you’ll only ever be Mom. Who are you, apart from your kids? The Before Kids you seems like another person entirely. (And she probably is.) You wonder if you will ever “find yourself” again. You wonder if anyone remembers your name, outside of Parent.
But one day? This stage of life will only be a memory.
It’s true that in your reality, as it is today, you will sometimes want to tie your kids up or just pretend they’re not even here, shaking the house loose from its foundation. Sometimes you’ll feel a bit too close to crazy, because there’s no one to talk to, and as soon as you get on the phone with a friend, the clowns are hanging from the drapes and opening the refrigerator (even though you cleaned up breakfast five minutes ago), and you won’t be able to ignore the three pounds of grapes eaten in one sitting this time, because there are still three days of lunches that must be made. They’re playing with the plunger in a toilet that probably wasn’t flushed, so you’ll have to hang up before your friend even answers.
This is a hard, lonely stage of life. It will seem like it’s never-ending. It will feel like your kids will always be this challenging, that these fights with the 9-year-old about the restrictions on technology time will always happen, that these disagreements about the way your house is the lamest house ever will always be the way of things. It can feel like you’ll always have trouble with the 4-year-old attitude and that you’ll always be wiping snot and changing diapers and trying to get a good night’s sleep for once in your life.
But you won’t. This stage of life will pass. And when it does, you’ll only have your memories.
So let’s make them good. And full. And way bigger than the loneliness we feel for a small moment in time.
This is an excerpt from Dear Blank: Letters to Humanity, which does not yet have a release date. For more of my essays and memoir writings, visit Wing Chair Musings.
