The Finals Countdown

I've been sitting in Starbucks for fifteen minutes now, staring at a blank computer screen. The problem isn't really the screen; it's my mind, which seems to have gone completely blank. I can hear the marbles banging against my once active cranium whenever I shake my head. The chiropractor seems to have loosened more than my neck.

It's finals week here at the high school in deep dark suburbia. My daughter has locked herself in her room for long stretches each day, adhering strictly to the detailed schedule she had devised for herself last week. Eat, study, watch TV. Eat, study, hang out on Facebook. When I called her down for dinner the other day, she informed me she would not be down for another nineteen minutes. Whether she was deeply engrossed in the Krebs Cycle or some heavy duty social networking I couldn't tell you, but I'm glad she's taking her schedule seriously.

The combination of my own blank mind (except for a few stray marbles) and the pall that has settled over Mayberry while girls trade in make-up and tight jeans for ashen skin and sweats (gasp) and boys who can grow beards grow beards and others settle for some extra peach fuzz has made me sort of nostalgic for school days. Lord knows I can't remember as far back as high school, but I distinctly remember with a bit of a rose colored eye the coziness of finals week in college and law school. No classes, no schedules other than the overly optimistic blocks of time scribbled on bits of paper, no fashion worries. Just gallons of coffee, boxes of stale cookies, and the indescribable comfort of expandable waist bands.

My daughter doesn't seem to see the sweet romance in all that she's going through right now, but (and don't tell her this) she's been extremely pleasant as she hibernates and readies herself for her first set of high school exams. To me, she looks absolutely exquisite when she shuffles out of her cave in baggy shorts and an oversized tee shirt, her hair dangling in natural waves and her face as God (or somebody) intended it. All the bullshit has been stripped away, and with it a good deal of adolescent scorn. The pressure seems both humbling and liberating.

It's gotten me to thinking of strategies for melting away my own bitchiness, which I admit can give any teenager a run for her money. Is it possible that engaging in some sort of intellectual activity might help? Not that doing mountains of laundry and talking to dogs all day isn't stimulating, but it just doesn't seem to be filling in the empty spaces between the marbles.

When my daughter gets through her biology final, I'm going to borrow her text book, and conduct a little laboratory experiment of my own; I'm going to see what effect the Krebs Cycle has on a mind that has turned to mush.