It’s been a bad week. Jasper got sick, and then Emilia got sick, and now everyone is sick and I haven’t slept in days and I’m way behind on everything and have no idea when I can even begin to catch up because SICK CHILDREN and NO SLEEP make Catherine a DULL GIRL and I feel like a sucky whiner for wallowing in self-pity while my sister copes with the slow process of losing her son, a boy who is able to keep a smile on his face even as his ability to do his favorite things – draw, strum guitar – fades away, even as he faces death, and meanwhile I am crabby because I had to wash toddler puke out of my hair and because I live in a universe where there is a second Sex and the City movie and all that just makes me feel worse about myself, so.

I need to take a page out of Emilia’s book. No, really, her actual book, in which she writes stuff like this:

Sure, there seems to be a Smoke Monster racing through the explosion of fireworks at the bottom of the page – I’m just going to assume that that’s her critical reflection on the season finale of Lost – but the textual narrative – ‘Emilia likes sunny weather. She is a the best girl’ – is a lesson in positive thinking and self-affirmation that I would do well to take to heart, Smoke Monster-infested week or no. Sunshine! Self esteem! Fireworks! Little orange stick people who know that they are AWESOME! I need some of this for me!

But I’ll probably also keep the Smoke Monster underscore. Because, seriously.