I don’t feel like I’ve written much lately – just relying on pictures to pull this thing along – partly because I don’t know what I have to say lately. My mind feels like a broken record – I woke up at oh-dark-thirty last night and couldn’t the same three thoughts to stop cycling through my brain. That and I couldn’t get church music out of my head. I kept trying to think of nice blank things, like a snowbank or clean white sheets, but that didn’t really help. I shouldn’t complain because I ended up sleeping something like a rediculous ten hours, minus the time spent tossing & turning & obsessing, which probably wasn’t that long, but it always feels like forever when you can’t get back to sleep.

Yesterday was a good kind of draining – but accounts for needing all that sleep. I came face to face with all the little ways in which I’ve been forgetful and lazy lately. The fact that I forgot to tell the library in advance that I needed to leave early to go to Pre-Sanc and Unction (something I could have told them this time LAST YEAR). The fact that it was my turn to clean the breakroom in March and I left it until yesterday. Etc. I feel so bright and happy when I’m on top of things and plan in advance and am orderly. It makes my head hurt when I pull shit like that and make people rearrange their schedules at the last minute just because I was lazy.

But then spending four hours in church put me right again. Go read Kate’s account of the Tour de France – excuse me, Holy Week. I watched Q for part of the services, which is something I rarely do for any length of time because she tends to ping-pong between her mom & grandmother. But I was standing by a bench, which offers endless opportunities for diverting oneself excessively (especially if one is two-almost-three), and then I took her to the playroom during the gap between services, which pretty much sealed her affections in my favor.

During Unction she asked very politely if she could get a scarf, so we got one from the cabinet in the narthex which is filled with various hideous head-coverings left behind by other parishoners (or, more likely, secretly dumped there to get them out of their houses). Q chose a particularly lovely blue & red polka dot number, long enough to trail on the floor as she wore it. Back in our places, during particularly solemn moments of prayer, she took to practicing what I like to call her “interpretive scarf dance.” It would start harmlessly enough, with her tossing the slick polyester over her head, followed by an effort to throw the ends over her shoulders. As soon as it was in place, she’d whip it off, flail her arms, hop a few times, perhaps throw herself on the floor, and start over.

Today I’m torn between weaning myself off food in preparation for Holy Friday’s strict fast or taking this last opportunity for a few solid meals. Technically, no food from what, sunset tonight? until Saturday afternoon. Me, I need at least a snack on Friday night or Saturday morning. I’m not made of that strong a metal. I went with the “smoothie and a faux-chicken burger” option. Oh look, it’s time to go to church again.

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