6:00 a.m.: Wake up. Pee. Drink two cups of coffee. Pee. Drink a third cup of coffee. Pee. Drink Diet Coke. Leave for work.

8:30 a.m.: Arrive at office. Pee. Drink cup of tea. Pee. Drink bottle of Arrowhead water. Pee. Drink cup of Starbucks Via. Pee. Drink iced oolong tea. Pee.

12:30 p.m.: Eat nine Triscuits. Pee.

2:00 p.m.: Drink bottle of iced tea. Pee. Think about drinking more tea. Pee.

5:00 p.m.: Come home. Pee. Drink Diet Coke. Pee.

6:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.: Drink several more Diet Cokes. Pee several more times. Go to bed.

The author Tom Robbins once wrote that humans are merely a device invented by water for transporting itself from one place to another. I’m living proof that he was right.

Roxanne Hack of the Orange County Register wrote a column this week about hating mommy conversations — how just because you have a kid, everyone assumes you’re interested in everyone else’s kid, their bowel movements, their teething issues. Roxanne hit that one out of the park. Oh, I blog about my own kids, a lot — too much. I’ll mention them on Facebook. That’s the beauty of the Internet: you can close the window, ignore the post, choose not to read. But in realspace, please don’t hit me with the mommy talk.

Waiting to pick the kids up from school, I sit on the schoolyard benches with my nose buried in a history book on the Kindle. The rest of the moms are chatting in little groups. About what? Cupcakes? The PTA? Play dates? Who knows. If they would like to discuss criminology, or foreign policy during the Kennedy administration, I’m their girl. But I get the feeling they don’t. Shit, just for reading a book instead of chatting, they look at me like I’m from another planet.

I’m not totally lacking in mom friends, of course. I have my Facebook buds, and also a private online group of longtime Internet mom friends I hand-picked for their wit, intellect and lack of female cattiness. We talk about our kids, sure, but we also talk about everything else from our careers to sex to religion to our sons’ equipment to politics to our coochies. I’m not going to find that level of discourse on the playground, and besides: these girls aren’t going to ask me to pick up their kids from school or expect me to sit in their kitchens sipping coffee. I like it this way.

I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy, of course. I spent my entire early childhood catching turtles, snakes and crawdads in the woods. At parties, I don’t hang with the women in the kitchen, I hang with the guys — that’s where all the fun is, the dirty jokes and sports talk. I’m pretty damned comfortable with who I am. I just wonder if my kids would prefer a normal mom? A classroom-volunteering, cupcake-baking, SUV-driving, scrapbooking, coupon-clipping kind of mom? Does it bother them that their mom is, well, not like the other mommies?

My grownup daughter, who should know because I really haven’t changed, says it’s okay — she wouldn’t have wanted me to try to be like that, and I’d have done a bad job if I tried. I hope she’s right. I hope for my kids, hikes and tarantulas outweigh the lack of cupcakes and volunteerism.

My good friend Mark of Going Like Sixty, who is mostly absent from Facebook although a member, warned me about this. Facebook and Twitter are going to result in the death of blogging. It’s just way too convenient to post a 20-second tweet or Facebook update rather than actually sit down and think out a chunk of something well-organized and meaningful. If you look at my blogroll, which I have not updated since approximately the dawn of time, you may notice that a lot of my reads have left off blogging altogether in the past year or two.

Part of the reason for this is probably that a lot of people I know write for a living at least to some extent. Oh, I only can claim to know one novelist on a personal level, and that largely because we nursed babies simultaneously. But a lot of my friends write for at least some portion of their gainful employment, and there is the endless legal writing that consumes us legal types, even though we’re not writers as such. Many of us are eager to take a break from writing, not to escape into it, for God’s sake.

Either way, people don’t much want to take the time for words, or an attention span, anymore. We’re all about Twitter and Susan Boyle and 15 minutes of fame, little dribs and drabs of this and that. No time, no commitment. Even as I write this, I’m losing interest in writing it (although this may be in large part for the reason that all three of my young kids are simultaneously running around screaming like loons). Even when they’re not distracting me, there are the glugs of arriving e-mails and the pops of arriving chat messages. And that’s for someone like me — a total misanthropic bitch! I can’t imagine the distraction level for people of normal socialization.

I don’t want to make the point I’m trying to make for fear of lapsing into a reverie about the good old days of snail mail and network television and morning and evening newspapers. But I think it’s pretty obvious. The Internet is a two-edged sword, and people have the attention span of gnats. A bunch of years ago I was on the cutting edge of blogging. Now I’m on the cutting edge of being too lazy to blog anymore. And I’m not at all sure this is a good thing.

See y’all on Facebook.

She passed away late Tuesday night, or early Wednesday morning if you wish to get technical. I have so many things I want to say about her, from picking corn in the field behind our Pennsylvania house when I was a child, to her sweetness and patience with my rowdy sons and headstrong Boolie toward the end of her life.

I’m a terrible Catholic. I think we’ve established that. But howsoever you believe, believe that she is now in some fantastic place. Because if there is ever a woman who deserved an ideal afterlife, it’s my mom. I’m a pain in the ass, and she put up with me with very little complaint. Think: How many people are that generous? Not so many. Please hug your loved ones tightly tonight, and be happy they are here with you, even if they are pains in your asses. Because someday they won’t be there, and your ass may be missing that particular pain. Mom, when all was said and done, was no pain at all. She was just love. That’s what Boolie thinks. Good night.

Yeah, I know. Not so much with the talk or the post. Except my mom is, oh I don’t know, sort of in the end stage of cancer and I have no words. I don’t need to hear about how sorry you are; I just not am not so much in the mood for levity these days. Except when Sam and Matt intervene, because those dudes are some kind of funny. Also, Erika and her husband Joel are taking Ben and me to the Kings-Ducks game in Anaheim next weekend, in the premium seats 10 rows from the blue line. This will be good, unless Ben’s angiogram on Friday has complications. Remember that thing about raining and pouring?

Anyway. There is not so much point to this; this post is a placeholder, with better days to come, but they sure as shit are not coming right now. You know reality? This is a lot like it, except much more surreal, and also time moves more slowly and simultaneously more quickly. Erika said “God, what is wrong with you? Have you been smoking pot?” and the answer is no, I haven’t smoked pot in months. I’m on grief. Who knew it could bend your mind so hard?

Going Like Sixty tagged me with a meme to issue instructions to our new President, whoever he may be, in 100 words or less. He called me a Republican lawyer married to a Republican lawyer. Well, that’s partially true; I didn’t finish law school, voted for Clinton twice, and voted for Obama today. My husband Ben, who is indeed a lawyer (and isn’t he fucking sorry), has usually voted Republican and today voted for McCain, mostly because I suspect his RNC mother threatened to disinherit him if he didn’t. That’s fine; as Ben knows, a red vote in California doesn’t count for jack point shit.

Anyway. I don’t have 100 words, but I can do Top Ten lists, and this is what pops to mind. Mr. President, please:

1. Don’t be an asshole.
2. Think outside of party lines. (Bill Clinton didn’t think outside of panty lines, hee.)
3. Don’t be stupid about the Iraq war.
4. Try not to embarrass your country in front of the world as several of your predecessors have done.
5. If your name is not Obama, don’t kick the bucket and leave that twat in office.
6. If your name is not McCain, don’t be a total socialist fairy.
7. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
8. Take our country, and your duty to EVERYONE in it, very seriously.
9. See what you can do about the economy, because honestly.
10. Don’t be an asshole.

I didn’t bother to count words, but I am seriously pressed for time. Many of my friends have quit blogging. I will, however, tag:

Tenille of Gluten Free Frugal, a brilliant prairie supermom career woman.

Holly of Nothing But Bonfires, because she’s a (recently engaged!!) British expat and sees the U.S. with fresh eyes.

Dana of Angst du Jour, because she’s Canadian and also sees the U.S. with unbiased eyes.

Jennifer of Faking It, because she’s as sincere and earnest as I am irreverent and pungent.

That’s all I’ve got. See y’all on the other side! And a special P.S. to whichever party loses the election: NO. FUCKING. WHINING. PLEASE.

1. If I hear McCain say “my friend(s)” one more time, I’m going to plotz.
2. If I hear Obama ask for change one more time, I’m going to plotz.
3. If Sarah Palin winks at me one more time, I’m going to plotz.
4. If the Obama campaign text-messages me one more time, I’m going to plotz.
5. If I hear McCain say “No, really, I’m winning” one more time, I’m going to plotz.
6. If I hear the Democrats complain there’s an evil plot afoot to “steal” a third election, I’m going to plotz.
7. If I have to look at 96 more hours of CNN election coverage, I’m going to plotz.
8. If I hear one more political partisan accusing the opposing party’s candidate of drinking the blood of virgins, I’m going to plotz.
9. If I hear of one more lawn sign defaced or one more hanging in effigy, I’m going to plotz.
10. If I have to listen to one more celebrity-politician (e.g., Schwarzenegger, Gore) campaign endorsement, I’m going to plotz.

In short, it is fairly certain I’m going to plotz sometime between now and late next Tuesday. Good Christ, let’s get this over with.

Like most people raised Catholic, I’m totally conflicted about religion. I’m a baptized, confirmed Catholic (my confirmation name is Cecilia! Little known fact!) who attended Catholic schools exclusively until university. Also like most Catholics, I rebelled against my faith, in spades. I explored everything: Wicca, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Reform Judaism. (Not Islam, but no offense meant there. Back when I was coming of age, there wasn’t the Islam stigma that Americans have these days.)

But I have to laugh like hell at myself, because you can take the girl out of the Catholic Church, but you can’t take the Catholic Church out of the girl. When I need the comfort of faith, I’m more Catholic than the freaking Pope. But I can’t believe in Catholicism. I’m sorry. I really tried, and I tried to believe in Catholic Lite (a.k.a. the Church of England, or probably Episcopal to you). (Did you know that “Episcopal” is an anagram for “Pepsi-Cola”?) I tried so hard, I had my husband and two sons baptized by the Anglicans. I mean the C. of E. I mean the Episcopalians. Whatever.

You know what, though? In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. It doesn’t feel true to me, and I have a strong faith in my instincts, if not in my Church. I can’t say I’m an atheist; I would like to believe in something. Honestly, I wish it was so. But I don’t believe. Not really. Except when times get tough. I really envy people like my friend Lisa from Wisconsin, who is a sincere Catholic. To me, it usually feels like an artificial construct.

Recently on Facebook I mentioned that I was wearing my Miraculous Medal (a Virgin Mary relic, for the uninitiated) because of the dire state of my mom’s health. I have also been known to do such things as light candles in California missions for various dying parents (it appears I’m on my second). I also believe in rainbows and shooting stars as good omens.

Humans are still completely superstitious. We like to paint ourselves as sophisticated and enlightened, but we’re still really just reading omens and augurs and believing in invisible men in the sky. I wish it wasn’t true. Now, more than ever, I wish I really believed all the Catholic rituals which, strangely, comfort me so. I just wish I knew what I really believe versus what was ingrained in my brain when I was too young to know the difference.

I’m not going to get into the Sarah Palin issue in general; I mean, I get into it almost every day, but I am so tired of the election and the endless discussion and the jibes and the sniping. I would almost accept a McCain win if it meant that I could finally stop hearing about it. I said almost.

I was up late last night watching CNN and Fox News, which is my personal vice, and I just can’t get past that woman’s hair. What exactly is she doing? What is she trying to say?  I have to say I prefer it to Hillary Clinton’s hair helmet; Sarah Palin’s hair looks more like my hair. She has bangs. Her hair actually moves in a good breeze. (Then again, I’m not running for anything.) But I find Sarah’s hair distracting when she speaks, and instead of listening to what she’s saying, I end up pondering her hair.

What’s that rumpy bumpy bit on the back? Is that a butterfly clip I see back there, or just a rat’s nest? This is the person who wishes to be, as they say, a heartbeat away from the Presidency. I’m not at all sure Sarah, or her hair, is up to the job.

Apart from taking a look at the issues, I have a purely instinctive way of assessing Presidential candidates: I take a good hard look at them, physically, and think Could I see this person running my country? John Kerry looked like Frankenstein, and I was wary of him. Apparently America was too, despite the general sinking sense about W that was prevalent at that time. And last night, I was gazing sleepily at John McCain’s jowls and Sarah Palin’s hair and thinking No, this is not right. There are, of course, myriad political issues behind my assessment. I will leave it to other bloggers to dissect these; I’ve neither the time nor the inclination. But I know one thing, and that is that hair like Sarah Palin’s should not be at the head of our nation.

I have been keeping a daily weather blog for, I don’t know, ten or eleven days, and already I am bored to tears. Despite the fact that the weather around here has actually changed! in the past week. There have been clouds, and temperature shifts, and wind! Even a spot of rain. Which is about as much excitement as I’m likely to see.

My older boy, Sam, is the king of being bored. Usually at least once a day he tells us I’m bored, and we have dubbed him the Chairman of the Bored. I am always quick with the mom-type suggestions to relieve boredom (if you’re bored, why don’t you clean up your room? scrub the toilets? pick up the dog shit?) but of course he rejects all such suggestions.

The poet John Berryman, of whom I am terribly fond despite generally hating poetry, wrote in his Dream Songs that Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. I was an English major, and I have never, to this day, read a literary line that struck me like that one. Is this the human condition, or is it just Sam, John Berryman and me? Berryman committed suicide by throwing himself off a bridge. I dare to hope Sam and I will end better than that. He may have gotten the knack of boredom, but not living? Unthinkable. You’ve got to find out what happens next, don’t you?