MindSpinner

It’s homecoming week at school. I’ve hosted banner-making parties in my classroom. I take tickets at the game tonight. We the yearbook staff have met our next-to-last (and biggest) deadline. I haven’t had a minute to grade papers after posting grades for progress reports late Sunday night, ensuring that I have hours of schoolwork to do this weekend.

Last night my watch stopped at 11:18 - dead battery. I checked my dresser drawer for my second watch this morning - that has stopped, too, one day or night at 9:27. I even checked the gold pendant watch my mother gave me once, which lies neglected in my fancy schmancy jewelry organizer for lesser treasures (a plastic ice cube tray). The pendant is supposed to look like a ladybug; the ladybug’s body has the requisite shiny spots, gold on gold. It’s just the size of those scarab beetles that burrow into people’s brains in movies we all remember. That’s stopped, too, at five minutes after 12:00.

I think the cosmos is trying to send me a message. Inner longing and pragmatic brain are debating its content. Inner longing crosses her arms and says, “Clearly, time should stop for a bit. Schedules should cease. You need a few days off the spinning hamster wheel of your life.” Pragmatic brain snorts in reply, “Nice try. Add ‘buy watch battery’ to your to-do list - that’ll be a trip to small-town Wal-Mart on Saturday morning for you, Sweetheart.” I crack their heads together like a couple of coconuts and say, “Who really needs a watch, anyway?”

But the clock on my laptop says it’s getting late. I need to get stuff into the car and the trash to the curb. TGIF.