all the leaves are brown

there's something to be said for a low-key weekend: it gives one time to think.

yesterday: i managed to go back to sleep after being up for three hours in the middle of the night. and then the phone started ringing. i really need a personal secretary to shield me from all things unnecessary.

so we escaped and went to the west side market. i managed to eat my shrimp noodles in the balcony without having a meltdown; two weeks ago at the market, after we ate our breakfast/lunch in the balcony, which involves watching seven million parents with children in strollers and/or snuglis, i had me a good cry, right there in the balcony. but yesterday i was just thinking this hans-related thought: i wish he was here. but if he was, how would we have gotten his stroller up the stairs? he'd probably be too big to wear in a carrier now, wouldn't he? we had enough trouble getting our fold-up shopping cart up the stairs, and it was still empty; a stroller, especially one with a baby in it, probably would have started world war three between us.

mike and kath and charlie came for dinner: chips and guacamole (i accidentally doubled the lime juice, so it was extra...zesty), mushroom soup with spinach tortellini and gruyere puffs, blue and brie and crackers and apple slices and dark chocolate with crystallized ginger in it. charlie warmed up to me more than usual, and we played with the hot wheels and beat drumsticks against my copper water pitcher, and it was lovely.

more importantly, we got into the discussion of how laura is wasting her life. kath said something to me i needed to hear: i can't afford not to go back to school. she's right, of course, although they see school as the cure-all for everything. mike just finished his phd in anthropology, and kath, who got her undergrad in english, has now gone back to get her phd in genetic epidemiology. school is all they know. but:

i'm in a dead-end job i took when i first moved here to ease my way back into the job market after a year out of it; three and a half years later, i'm still there. i could go back to my old career i abandoned five years ago and make three times as much as i make now. we'd also have to move, and i would be miserable and generally impossible with which to live and justin and i would be divorced within a year, tops.

mike has talked to me before about becoming a therapist, and i take his encouragement seriously because he is not generally devoted to inspiring others or giving much of a damn about what anyone else does. or exerting any unnecessary effort. my primary physician also recently said to me out of the blue, "i could see you running a grief support group."

what neither of them know is that i had planned to go into counseling when i was 17. i majored in sociology (my school didn't have a social work program), but i was just not ready to buckle down, and i frittered away my full ride and finally dropped out of school. over the years, i've taken enough hours for a bachelor's degree but never completed one. in my first "real" job, i had a great mentor who invested in me and taught me everything about that business, and from there i advanced quickly on my reputation, and then i never had time to go back to school.

so my options now are: (1) stay where i am (or go to another pointless job) and not make what i am worth and continue to be unsatisfied, (2) go back to my old career and make scads of money and be miserable, or (3) suck it up and eat ramen and get the fuck back in school so i could eventually do something actually worthwhile and, with a master's, make more money while not feeling guilty about it. i could be the therapist for which i've been looking.

i haven't seriously considered the last option. ever. why not?

matt and sara came for brunch this morning, and we talked a little more about it. sara is finishing her mba, and then when she gets done, matt is going back to school, so obviously they're pro-school, too, but it was encouraging to talk to them about it.

justin and i talked about what it would take. we would have to scale back. we could go out basically never. when i got to the point that i had to go full time, we would probably have to sell our houses and get something smaller or in a first-ring suburb. but we could do it. as much as it scares me to take on more debt, in the long run a good therapy practice would more than pay for it. justin's grandmother is flexible and could help us with childcare. so i'm going to work on getting my transcripts this week.

it feels good to be formulating goals, especially ones that aren't baby-related. maybe this is the project my therapist thinks i need.

for now, though, i need to go clean up the kitchen and think about dinner. i've been avoiding the kitchen all afternoon. i had my stuff (herbed scrambled eggs, more gruyere puffs, peach slushies) ready and cleaned up when matt and sara got here, but then they cooked their stuff (waffles, berry compote, coffee) here, so the waffle iron is a mess and there was a grinder incident so there is coffee debris on every surface, so i've just been pretending it isn't there. i wish i could will the mess away.