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16 Sep

The Physics of Domesticity

The Second Law of Domestic Dynamics – the Law of Parental Entropy – states that one’s children will be demanding in inverse proportion to one’s level of energy. Which is to say, the slower the parent moves, the faster moves the child, from which it follows that if one has flu, the rate at which one’s toddler speeds around the house (and, correspondingly, the decibel level of the noise that said toddler produces) increases in opposing relation to one’s general wellness (or, alternative, in direct relation to one’s fever and/or one’s headache and/or the degree of one’s sinus congestion.)

The First Law of Domestic Dynamics – the Law of Spousal Energy – states that the degree of bickering over small matters in the quotidien cycle of a marriage increases in direct relation to the difference in levels of energy between spouses. This is to say that under conditions wherein one spouse has a headache (or, say, a bout of flu from which derives a headache) and the other does not, the latter will be more inclined to disagree with anything said by the former, such that petty bickering escalates proportionate to the intensity of the former’s headache.

These laws derive from the hypothesis, suggested by thermodynamics, that that the fundamental object of contention in the life-struggle in the maintenance of the domestic sphere is available energy.

All of which is to say – I’m physically and emotionally exhausted from sinus congestion and headache and less tangible irritants pertaining to the occasional difficulty of navigating life with a partner and need to crawl under the covers for, like, days and so have nothing to offer by way of a blog post.

So if you’re looking for actual blog content, you should scroll back to previous posts. You want heart strings and a challenge – check this post. You want a take on pop culture skewed by hormones and maternal empathy – check this one.

Otherwise, you’ll just have to wait a day or two until my head stops hurting.

The view from here.