There are always certain currents in the flux of living that press us with a stressfulness -- to tighten the muscles of the neck and face and scalp -- to erode our good tempers with anxiousness and impatience -- to grapple at our ankles and thwart the dance.

Usually it's just a buffet here or there.  But not the last few weeks.

At work where a big project was going off the rails; and in an academic job hunt that was getting little traction; and Monica was off to London a week ago and I am leaving for France the day after tomorrow; and my parents are arriving and I've got to pack up the boys and batten the hatches and prepare the pets for a week and a half of gone-ness; and Porter was behind on his big homework project; and I'm not getting any exercise and I'd like a doctor to look at my jaw; and the Crossing Over ceremony for the webelos is closing in while my attention and competence ebbs away; and the economy is bad and maybe even terminal; and global climate shock is liable to make it all moot anyway; and I'm not getting any doses of spirituality at the Unitarian Church; and on top of all that there's no bread in the house to make sandwiches for the boys' lunch.

And I can't tell whether I have any of my shit together or not. 

Yeah, well, tomorrow I make like a shaman and braid all my distressing and disparate stress-currents into a nice wet tapestry of competence and preparedness.  'Cause I have to get on a plane to Paris, dammit.