Rainy day musings

I love not having to go to work. There's something absolutely WONDERFUL about waking up knowing the day belongs to YOU.

I spent part of it driving Miss Jessica which was a wonderful way to get to spend time with her. I've thought about it a lot, that I don't know how to have a relationship with my grown-up daughter. While I love my mom dearly, ours is not the relationship I'd choose to have with Jes. I struggle between wanting to participate so much more in her life, to wanting her to experience her independence, to just feeling like a 3rd wheel being in the way. So I throw up my hands and try to answer "YES" whenever she calls or asks for my help or opinion or whatever I can offer. When I think about how I love her, the answer comes back, "Fiercely." I know that I will do whatever I can, whatever she needs unquestioningly. Kinda like a backup quarterback ready to step in at a moment's notice to run the show. I'm usually happy with the situation, and hope she is too.

I finished up "The Hour That I First Believed" by Wally Lamb today. I started it back at the beach, and it's quite the heavyweight read -- very dense, filled with history and characters and mental illness and ups and downs and on and on and on. I think the book could've used a better editor - so much is included that neither informs the reader or characters nor advances the plot. In places, hundreds of pages could've been summed up in a paragraph. Which is probably why it took me so long to slog through to the finish. It was not as good as either of Lamb's either two weighty books. I remember loving every twist and turn of "She's Come Undone." Not this one - although it combines Civil War nursing with the Columbine massacre. I'm glad I finished and looking forward to the next read I pick up. Maybe it will be Steig Larrson's next one. Or the Philip K. Dick reader (birthday g/c booty). The only guarantee is that it will not be another doorstopper like this one.