welcome to the inner sanctum

Dear paying subscribers,

You are so kind and so patient — I’m sorry this is the first subscriber-only post I’ve done so far! I’m really grateful to have you as a subscriber and I’m sorry to have repaid your generosity the only way I know how — by neglecting and rebuffing it and hoping you’ll continue to like me anyway. (I’m working on it?)

This week has been pretty bleh — Keith and I have been taking turns supervising Zoom kindergarten on Mondays, and whenever it’s my Monday I feel like my week starts on the most inauspicious possible note. I always think I will get a lot of chores done around the house, because keeping Raffi on task precludes doing any other forms of work, but then I never even accomplish that. I spent 10-1pm this past Monday intermittently trying to unload the dishwasher while Raffi rolled around on the floor, playing with play-doh with a vehement intensity I know well — the kind of focus a person can only summon if he is actively trying to avoid doing something else. His saintly, wonderful teacher, meanwhile, was successfully getting at least some of the other kids to draw a picture of a lion and do basic addition. I thought about dropping out and unschooling Raffi, so that he could play with play-doh and listen to the Hamilton soundtrack as much as he wants. However, I know Raffi (because to some tragic extent I am Raffi) and so I know that if playing with play-doh and listening to the Hamilton soundtrack was what he was to be doing, he’d find a way to avoid it by doing something else.