Crowding

"Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything you have right now, and then got it back again."

-Frances Rodman

For many months before Hurricane Katrina, I was using this quotation as part of my online signature. It seemed particularly apropos after Joel was injured last October when we were t-boned in a car wreck. Again, I resonated to it, when Joel's kidney stone attacks began, and I began to realize the extent to which I had taken him and his health for granted. Now I would amend that quotation as follows:

"Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything you have right now, and then got it back again." And now think of how it would be if all of it were crammed into a telephone booth with you. Every part of it: all the adolescent tantrums, the canine housebreaking mishaps, the job-seeking insecurities, the hardware and software incompatibilities, the spam and viruses...I love my family, but I need to get away.