Wow. I haven't written in ages. I'm sort of titillated by the notion that no one is checking up on me anymore ... aside, of course, from the ever lurching Michigan Board of Law Examiners character and fitness committee. My stomach has been giving me trouble, and by giving me trouble, I mean trying to claw its way up my throat and out my mouth so it can zombify my family with hypnotic acid rays. And all I'll have to show for it is an inside out belly attached to my face.

I know it's just stress. Applying to the bar exam feels like cutting to be first in line for the Spanish inquisition. I have exactly 15 days to finish compiling every public piece of data ever produced on me. I haven't seen my children in more than 24 hours. By the time I do, it will have been 36 and they will be sleeping. I know that everything I've sacrificed in the last three-and-a-half years has led me here, but I genuinely feel like throwing up my hands.

I really wish I could be the next Heather Armstrong and make my living writing about the legitimately and accidentally funny things my kids say on a regular basis. I really thought that by this point in my life, I would be set as far as having a home and an occupation and control over my urge to choke Scotty's soccer coach. I don't.

But if I did, I would probably say that when we were driving a few days ago, Scotty said to me, "Mama, I hope John McCain doesn't get voted because he will try to put me in the army." I suppose I can take some solace in the fact that I'm raising the kid right.