Dear Self,

The next time one of your sisters suggests going to the American Museum of Natural History on a day when every school in the western hemisphere is closed, get a good prescription for anti-anxiety meds before you agree to go.

That claustrophobia of yours isn’t improving with age. No, your panic attacks are now akin to a death spiral, making you dizzier and dizzier each time a new group of 10 people get on the already over-capacity elevator.

You should also get your affairs in order, because throughout the day, you will be sorely tempted to grab a chisel from the nearest paleontologist and do yourself in with it.

And if you choose to bring four children with you again? Bring the dog leashes. In fact, restraints of any kind will come in handy. You can put them in your rucksack, right next to the flask of scotch.

Love,

Me

p.s. If you really are considering going back, and if you don’t think your repeat appearance at the AMNC is a sure predictor of the end of days, remember the sight you beheld today: a labradoodle in service as a seeing eye dog. If you don’t recognize that as a sure sign of the impending apocalypse,  I’m really not sure what else to tell you.

It’s a major deadline deadline day for the WingDangDoo. You’ll please excuse me for being less than enthusiastic about the writing ahead of me for the next 97 hours. What’s that? Only 8 hours in the work day? Oh. I guess it only feels like 97.

A new product launch!

Except… it’s not new. It’s recycled. And so are the words I use to describe it.

I dutifully write the copy, carefully timing my work so I send it to editing before the deadline.

There are only so many ways to describe what my product does. I recycle the words, discarding the ones that offend the people whose talents I attempt to describe.

“How can you say that I am a ______? I looked it up in the dictionary. Do you even know what that word means? Your use of that word is pejorative.”

Fine, I’ll find a new word.

A NEW WORD! I find it. I work it in. I sell it to the people whose talents I attempt to describe.Slowly, they buy it.

Shiny and new(ish), the words disappear from my screen. Attach. Click. Send.

Gone.

Until the next time we recycle a product. And the words.

Hey, I know it ain’t Cannes, but I like this picture. If you look closely enough, I bet you can see the debris falling from Trump.

This is a call to my Stamford peeps.  Who gets your three votes for the Board of Education?

I’m ready to mail in my absentee ballot, but I am still struggling a bit on this final topic. I make no secret of how much I despise the current Board, and of the two incumbents I can only imagine voting for Julia Wade. But she frankly hasn’t earned my vote yet, and I think it’s time for three new members on the board. Incumbents be gone.

I didn’t make it to any of the candidate forums. I still harbor a lot of resentment about the current Board’s obsession (thwarted! HA!) with closing my kids’ elementary school.  After last year’s endless parade of pointless meetings, I couldn’t quite muster the enthusiasm to attend a candidate forum when I could much better spend those hours polishing my bitterness in the comfort of my own home.

With The Advocate’s spotty reporting and The Stamford Times’ limited (but good) articles on the topic, I feel a bit underinformed. The wasteland of Topix only sheds limited light on the subject. Voting by party is out of the question here, because the Democrat / Republican divide is irrelevant to me on this issue. In fact it’s my own party’s candidates who have disappointed me the most on the Board.

Maybe if I put my hatred aside for a while, you can tell me which three candidates will get your vote this year, and why. I want to mail my ballot in the next few days and I would really welcome any and all opinions. Especially the bitter-but-informed ones.

If you’d rather not publicly state your opinion, please email me. wing dang doo (all one word) at g mail dot you-know-where.

So here’s the thing: staying at a resort hotel while traveling on business blows. Especially when it’s a resort that’s located in The Happiest Place on Earth.

Most people who stay at hotels where business travelers hang out completely understand the rules of the road. Walk to the right. No surprise movements. And sweet Moses on roller skates: NO MEANDERING. Here, it’s a totally different ball of wax. I might think I’m the bee’s knees in my suit and heels, but the tank top and flip flops crowd look at me like I am an alien before they get in my way when I’m trying to get from point A to point B without colliding with a stroller.

Thanks to great ventilation, I’ve been able to chase the stink of the bug spray out of my room. But I can’t do anything about the painting on the wall. It’s a faux late-1800s merry-go-round scene, featuring people in their straw hats and bustles enjoying the ride and the beautiful evening. And, oh, wait, what’s that in the background? Why, yes. Of course. Cinderella’s castle.

It’s almost enough to convince me that this place has been here forever, and that it’s not built on top of a swamp / Indian burial ground.

Almost.

Let’s take a look back to early September, shall we? A time when I was fresh back from vacation, still basking in the glow of all that family time, before my job chewed me up and spit me back out again. Ha, ha, work, HA! UR so funny. Thanks for the tears this week, it’s been a blast!

But I digress. Way back in those days of ignorance and margaritas, I wrote about how we should judge Sarah Palin on her positions on the issues, not based on her gender.

I still stand by the bit about not judging her because she’s a woman, and especially the part about not doubting her abilities because she’s a mom. And I still really like what I wrote about the tooth fairy, unicorns and the Lucky Charms leprechaun. Anyway.

My thinking has changed a little. I am now convinced that we shouldn’t judge her. At all. It’s sad, really. If I had a frontal lobotomy I wouldn’t want y’all judging me either.  Look at the poor dear. She can’t even get the word caricature out of her perfectly Bobbi Brown’d lips. Can’t you just picture her out on her porch at night with her AK-47 waiting for Putin to invade her airspace? And I wonder how much sleep she loses over those Canadians.

I know this will irk my Couric-hating husband to no end (hi baby! I’ll be right home - gotta go resign first!), but there’s one thing this whole carica charact charade has proven: don’t fuck with Katie Couric. She’ll take you down. She’ll endearlingly tilt her head at you while she does it, and she’ll make it look like she really doesn’t want to ask you the tough question for the third time, but she’ll take you down faster than you can say thanks but no thanks to Congress about the Bridge to Nowhere sell the Governor’s jet on ebay tell Shimon Peres the Israeli flag is the only flag in your office transfer from the University of Hawaii at Hilo to Hawaii Pacific University to North Idaho College to the University of Idaho to Matanuska-Susitna College, and then back to the University of Idaho.

It’s the Season of the Freak Out at work. 2009 budgeting, two huge client events mere weeks away, all-day planning  meetings scheduled from 8 am until well into the night every day of next week…

But enough about my misery. It’s not terribly entertaining.  But Helen’s and Jacob’s misery; well, that’s a horse of a different color.

Pop yourself a nice big bowl of popcorn, get (un)comfortable and watch while Helen and Jacob explore every nook and cranny of their marriage with their counselor. The link will take you to one of four sessions currently available for your viewing pleasure.