vroom vroom

Hamish will turn three next week. I was in this chi-chi kids' store in Park Slope looking at these miniature Dickies brand backpacks, musing on getting one for him ($20), but then thought I'd pace my spending self and get it for a preschooly gift at the end of the summer. I mused this all out loud, like I tend to do, naively convinced that people care about the minutiae of my life (oh and I blog about it too...) And the sales clerk was lovely, following along with each snore-inducing detail, and asked if he was entering a threes or fours program, because once they reach the fours, the kids should really have a full-sized backpack since they'll be bringing home folders and will have homework. Homework. Before they're out of diapers. Possibly. When I taught at S___, the only homework first-graders were assigned was to learn how to tie their shoes by themselves. And S___ is a school that almost guarantees acceptance to an ivy league university upon entering kindergarten. I gripped the countertop and told the nice clerk I could feel the earth spinning. Spinning out of control. Time is like a Kenyan marathon runner, with blurry stick legs making me feel nauseated that I cannot ever keep up.

perchance to dream...

When I took a filmmaking class at NYU one summer about five lifetimes ago, a classmate opined that the most boring conversation topics included dreams and crushes. She was angry most of the time, and scared me with her unwavering brow-studded scowl so I listened when she spoke, and her words stayed with me. So I'm not going to bore you with my deranged and possibly obscene crush on Peter from The Family Guy, but I do apologize in advance for maybe boring you with this dream, because it alarms me and I don't want to forget it:

I am lying on a bed with Bryan, maybe in L.A. There is a new breed of shark that anyone can own and bring to life like a sea monkey. I hold the moon-colored baby shark and watch its pink tail retreat and emerge from its body after I have unwittingly brought it to life. I think, "Please don't bite me." Bryan and I have to go. We'll run late if we have to bring the shark, if we have to look after it like a baby. So I suffocate it in the pillow. I kill the shark, and though I reel from guilt, I tell myself that I'll be grateful later, when it doesn't grow up to be larger than me and tear me apart with its teeth. Then I wake up.

So, uh, yeah.