For the first several days of any vacation, I think, What’s vacation for? That’s how much fun I am to be with.

But I’m even more fun before vacation starts. Five days, maybe six, if you’re lucky, and sometimes people are very lucky, I know my husband considers himself (he’s said this) the luckiest man on the face of the Earth, before we leave I become, what’s the word? totally anxious about everything that I ever had to do or will have to do until the end of time. What about the children? is a thing I think to myself. They will have school in three weeks. What am I going to pack for Henry’s lunch? How will I ever get the doctor to sign their medical forms? How will I convince her to do this? And money! We might not have enough! David, do we have enough money? He says What? and rolls over. Also: Did I really graduate from law school? I never got my diploma in the mail, it’s true. On the other hand, the school communicated with the Bar and I couldn’t have passed the Bar if I didn’t graduate and I did pass the Bar. And yet those dreams that I have another paper to write are so convincing. Speaking of dreams, and writing, and all that, all that good stuff, Did I spend the last six years writing a shit novel? I hope not! Body hair. I must have it removed. Am I inappropriate with the children? Was Mom tense on the phone with me? What did Dad mean when he said that thing the other day? And what about the laundry and I have to get to the drug store and are we renting car seats? Aha! That’s it! Those things are vacation things. I’m tense about vacation! Relief floods through me, my husband is grasped around the middle and lifted into the air, the children are kissed all over their ears, because they've turned their heads from me. Vacation! Not my whole fucking life. Thank God. Now I can go lie on the sofa and put off packing until the last possible minute.

I’m not leaving tomorrow, by the way, I’ll be here tomorrow, but after that you’ll have to win your own round-robins and threaten your own children and wish you were somewhere else, on your own. You won’t have me to do it for you. You’ll have to make your own half-assed references to other people’s art. Maybe this will be good for you. Maybe this is just the kind of thing you need. I think it is, actually. You’re lazy, and you’re soft.