The ACP

I don't want this blog to be a dumping zone for my complaints and so I have been concealing my All-Consuming Problem (ACP) from this particular venue (although if you have seen me in person lately, you no doubt have gotten an earful of petty complaining. Right. Sorry about that). But today I happened upon a story that highlights the ACP in a way that may also be entertaining so I thought that I would just come clean.

Below is an excerpt from a weekly article by one of my favorite authors, Jeane Marie Laskas.

It's been six weeks or maybe longer since I've spoken with my sister Claire, and now she's on the phone, and I've got her voice blaring via Bluetooth through my car stereo speakers, so she sounds like a radio talk show host. I'm at a red light headed into the parking garage where I hold a permit. As soon as I enter the garage, my cellphone service will cut off, I'm telling Claire, so we have to hurry-talk, hurry to fill each other in on six weeks' worth of news.

"Hurry!" Claire says. "Okay, we have to sum up. We each have to think of one event that says it all. You go first."

"No, you," I say. (I can't think of anything.)

"You are wasting time!" she says. (She can't think of anything.) "Just use the first thing that comes to mind, the first event that makes you think: Yeah, that about sums up my life."

"This is a lot of pressure," I say, in one breath, and in the next I land on something. "Okay," I say. "Last night I dreamt all night long -- not one dream, I'm talking, like, 10 separate dreams -- about napping."

"You dreamt about sleeping?" Claire says.

"Every dream was a desperate journey to a napping place," I report. "A shelf in a store, a locker room bench, the back seat of a car."

"Wow," she says. "You are having sleep fantasies, in your sleep. This is probably big."

"In the last one, I was curled up on a church pew with a coat over my head, and a priest woke me up and forgave me but said I had to leave."

"Oh my, oh my, oh my," Claire says.

So, I could share the grisly details but suffice it to say that I do not recommend being pregnant, nursing and sharing a room with your 10 month old who wants to nurse 4 - 5 times a night. I have been on the couch for a couple weeks now and last night we had our first glimmer of hope that our efforts at night-time weaning may be successful. And maybe soon my thoughts will stop stuttering and my body will stop revolting against the idea of getting off the couch.