I could have been an archaeologist...

I'm rapidly learning to love blogging! It has a few advantages over newsletters:

• Newsletters tend to be more formal and business-like, while blogs tend to be more informal and personal - which means I can share personal stories with you.
  

• Newsletters are a one-way flow of information, while blogs are interactive. Because you can respond and share your opinions and ask questions, we can actually develop a relationship with each other and with other readers.
  

So here's an event I wrote about back in 2002 - two years after my husband and I separated, and a few months before the s**t hit the fan:

I could have been an archaeologist. I could have been a lawyer. I could have been a psychiatrist. Instead, I became a mother. Interesting occupation, that, teetering between the ridiculous and the sublime. All those beatific paintings of Mother and Child with haloes above their heads - don't believe it for a minute. Not that those painters deliberately misrepresented what it is to be a mother, but they took it all a little too seriously and left out the comic aspect altogether.

Take last night, for example. Mike and I were spending a quiet evening together at his apartment. The kids had decided to make dinner for themselves, and I'd given them Mike's phone number and instructions to call in case of an emergency.

The demanding, disembodied voice of my 11-year-old daughter fills the room: "Hi, Mom? Pick up. (Pause.) Mom, if you're there, pick up. I need to know how much milk and butter to put in the mashed potatoes."

Some time later, my 23-year-old daughter's voice interjects: "Hi, Mom. Sorry to bother you, but Ben's mom has to give a speech tomorrow, and she needs a fishing joke. Remember the one you told me about the game warden and the guy with the dynamite...?"

Still later, my 14-year-old son's voice: "Mom? Hi. This is Andrew. Listen, did you take the bread with you? I've looked everywhere and I can't find it. I have to make a peanut butter and jam sandwich, 'cause Maddy ruined the mashed potatoes. No kidding. They're like plaster. They even stick to the walls."

Giving birth is an incredible, soul-shaking event, but that's not what will bring tears to my eyes when I'm sitting on the porch in my rocking chair at 90. And to think I could have been a pilot...