The school secretary looked at me over the top of her glasses. The look clearly said, "Oh. It's you again. The mom who can't be bothered to get her child to school on time." She knows my daughter and me, which is not a good thing in a large school like my daughter's where I am definitely not on the PTA. She knows me because, I'm the Chevy Chase of moms. Seriously, if I were a mom in a movie, Chevy Chase would play the role of me.

I used to have a different relationship with school secretaries, and a part of me wishes I were wearing a big flashing shirt with a picture of my college diploma on it. It would be my way of saying, "I know! I'm disorganized! But I graduated at the top of my class and went to a really fancy college. I'm super good at all school stuff, except the getting here on time part. Seriously, give me an essay to write on the use of theatrical metaphors in Shakespeare and I am so on it. I can even get an A+ in gym and wood shop, as long as a significant portion of the grade is based on written tests about theory. You would like me if I were a student here. You'd never have a single disciplinary problem with me, and I'd skew the standardized test scores up to make the school look fancy. It's just as a parent that I seem kind of sucky."

School secretaries used to like me, even though they had to write late slips. And I'm an obsessive record keeper, so I know the had to write lots of them. Over the years, my diary entries read something like this:

"Missed the bus. Late for school."
"Missed the bus again."
"Late for school again."
"Walked to school because I missed the bus."
"Got to school on time! But forgot to brush my hair and put on makeup. "

Still the school secretaries would smile and ask if I wanted to pick up my trophy/certificate/medal/savings bond/scholarship check while I was there. It was like being a student athlete, only without the being-good-at-sports part.

And today, I had really genuinely meant to be on time. It was school picture day, so I knew I was going to have to be on my game. My daughter wanted to wear her fanciest dress and have me do her hair in its fanciest style: pigtails. So, she was up on time, eating breakfast and I was focused. No TV this morning. No playing Beatles Rock Band. I combed her hair into two neat pigtails and we put on her favorite dress. Then she grabbed her baseball cap.

"I think that's going to mess up your hair for the picture," I said.

"No it's not," she said, and placed it lightly on top of her head, so that if she leaned forward, it would fall off. She removed it and said, "See?"

"Oh no!" I cried in mock horror. "The hair! It's crazy!" And I laughed, but Janie covered her face with her hat and started to cry, "No, it's not!"

"No, it's not. I was teasing."

"That's not nice."

"I'm sorry. I love you. And it doesn't matter how your hair looks anyway. You're awesome. Let's go."

So Janie mashed the hat down on her head for real, smooshing down the carefully placed pigtails and walked out the door, head down, still mad at me. As we approached the school, I checked her backpack and... Oh crap. There was the picture order form (not filled out) and the envelope for the money (with no money).

"Uh oh. I didn't fill this out or pay the money," I said.

"Oh no!" said Janie, "But Mama, I got dressed in my fancy dress and everything, and now I won't get my school picture taken!" Her lip started to do that quivery thing. Crap. The form says right there on it "No late payments will be accepted."

"It's ok. I can do it right now." So I find a bench outside the school and start pulling out the entire contents of my purse. I definitely have some kind of writing implement in here somewhere. Mini-golf pencil! Score! I fill out the form. Now for the payment. I'll just whip out my checkbook and... Out of checks. Damn. Ok, I'll dig around in my purse for money. Is there a voice coming out of my cell phone? Crap. I accidentally called someone. Ok. Deal with that later. I definitely don't have enough bills, but I do have a lot of change. In fact, five dollars of it: nickels and dimes and quarters, which I stuff into the envelope, which now weighs twenty pounds. This is when my disorganization pays. Literally.

Janie is wide-eyed with delight at watching me count so much change, and clearly relieved that I have saved the day by having barely enough money in my purse for the minimum picture package. "We're going to be late," I said, "I'm really sorry."

"It's ok, Mama," said Janie, and together we walked into the office.

"Reason for lateness?" the school secretary said.

"It's totally my fault," I said. Janie looked up at me and smiled.

"Mom late," she wrote on the late slip, frowning. She handed the slip to Janie, and I watched her bounce off to her classroom, her hat still smashed down over her pigtails, thinking it's not bad to be the Chevy Chase of moms, but I still do want that flashing shirt, just a little.

"How did you know?" my son Austen asked.

"Know what, buddy?" I asked.  We had been talking about how a particular connector fit into a particular slot.  This, along with batteries and speakers, is a particular fascination of Austen's lately.  When we were watching the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks on DVD recently, we had to pause the movie during the scene in which Dave presents a record executive with the Chipmunks on a set decorated with lighted model Christmas trees and wired to play the background music to their big hit, "Christmas Don't Be Late."

This scene was the source of much heated speculation.  Where had Dave put the speakers?  Could we see them?  What was powering it all?  Did Dave plug it in but we didn't see it?  If so, how many prongs did the plug have?  If not, what kind of batteries (Double A? Triple A? C? Nine volt?) were powering the lights and the music?  Were there wires leading from the batteries?  What kinds of plugs and connectors were on the wires?  The possibilities were nearly endless, and all tantalizingly out of sight.  Austen clearly had a vision for a superior, autistic version of the movie where the camera would have plunged right past the Chipmunks and into the tangled mass of wires behind the cotton ball snow and plastic fir trees.  And I've got to agree with him, that version probably would have been more interesting to me too.

But right now, I have no idea what he's talking about other than something I just said about something that is probably (but not definitely) wires.  This is a problem I often encounter with Austen: he pays much more attention to what I say than I do, especially when his sister is talking to me at the same time, and I'm trying to get a snack ready for one of them and my terrible monkey mind is jumping ahead to the thousand other things I need to get done before bed.  It leads me to end up in moments like this where I'm standing and staring blankly at my kids as if I just woke up to find I'd been sleep walking around the house all day.

"HOW!  How did you know?!"

"Hm," I search my mind and I'm pretty sure the last sentence I said was that I didn't think that plug fit in the slot he was trying. "How did I know that connector doesn't fit in that slot?" I venture, "Um, because that's a connector for an XBox, but the thing you were trying to connect it to was not an XBox and the slot looked different, so I didn't think it would fit."

"No!" he screamed, "How did you know?!"

Damn.  Now I'm screwed.  I don't know what I said.  "I don't know, Austen.  I really don't remember what I just said.  I thought we were talking about that connector?  Could you help me?"

"No.  Remember for yourself.  Now, how did you know?"

Ok, I can get out of this.  I know he's stuck on this point because he's hungry, so I decide to continue with the activity that made me forget what I was talking about in the first place: making him something to eat.  He follows me dutifully around the kitchen, barking out at regular intervals, "How did you know?  How did you know?  How did you know?"

I was reminded of one day in high school history class when a teacher called on me, I think because he sensed I wasn't paying attention.  Which I wasn't.  I heard my name, but not the question.  "I'm sorry, what was the question?"

"Answer the question," he said.

"I can't answer it, because I didn't hear the question," I responded.

"Answer the question," he repeated.  We went back and forth like this, several more times, with me getting angrier and angrier until he called on someone else.  I was so relieved to hear the answer because then I could finally infer what the damn question was!  I wished I had someone else to pass this off to now.  Where was my husband when I needed him?

"Can we call Daddy and ask him how I know things?" I asked.

"No," said Austen, "How did you know?"

Ok, fair enough.  I was, admittedly, trying to cheese my way out there, but it was still worth a shot.

So, I try (unsuccessfully) focusing on the task at hand.  I try repeating my answer and then not answering at all.  Then I hazard a few more guesses.  I try some vague but plausible answers.  I try telling him I have magic, psychic powers that allow me to know everything.  I even try total kid gross-out silliness by telling him the way that I know is "because of big, drippy, gooey, snotty, yellow and green boogers."  That makes him laugh.  A lot.  But when he finishes laughing, he goes back to "How did you know?" adding the frustrated command, "And tell the truth!"  Boogers, however entertaining, clearly were not the truth.

But the truth is that I already told him the truth: I don't know and I need more information.  What he wants isn't the truth, it's the right answer, his right answer.  And as I hear him droning, over and over, "How did you know? How did you know?  How did you know?" I find that I desperately want to be able to give him the answer he wants to hear, so that we can all move on.  And I think, "Ah, this is how people end up with false confessions from torture, because they just want to find the answer that makes it end."

After he eats, Austen begins to calm down and asks, "How did you know that connector wasn't going to fit in that slot?"  Finally!  And damn it, that was the very first thing I tried and he told me that was not it!  "Well, I know that's a connector for an XBox because it says so on the package, but the thing you were trying to connect it to was not an XBox and the slot looked different, so I didn't think it would fit."

"Oh, ok," said Austen, and went off to examine some other wires.

So, it turns out that sometimes it's not having the true answer or the right answer that counts; it's having it at the right time.  And the right time for us is almost always after Austen eats.  (Note to self: if you're ever held for questioning, try offering the officers a snack, then give them the answer they want.)

"Where's the ketchup?"

"Don't you remember?" asks Mark, a little exasperated. "We had this conversation," he says as he begins to describe it to me in elaborate details: all the full sentences I said to him in response to what he said to me about some colossal ketchup accident and grocery store followup fiasco.  I wish I could remember, it was probably funny.

"Sorry, honey. I just don't.  I, um...  I wasn't looking you in the eye when I said any of this, was I?"  I'm embarrassed, because I'm fairly certain he's not making this up.  I know, we both know, that the conversation took place, but that I tuned him out, my mind's auto pilot answering him automatically.  And we both know what I was doing when it happened: reading.

"I get scared when you don't remember these things," Mark admits.  And I know how he feels, because I've recited a thousand lost tidbits, odd facts and snippets of conversations to him over the years, little bits of time and place that were lost to his addiction, times when he wasn't present with me because his mind was occupied with the next high, or the last one.

Shortly before this conversation, in my 12 Step group, we were talking about the ways in which we partners of addicts sought to escape from reality, the ways in which we literally and figuratively ran away from our problems.  And I shared that reading has always been mine.  For as long as I can remember, for as long as I've known how to decipher these symbols on a page, I've used them as a way to take my mind someplace else. When I was a child, I would shut myself up in the cool of my room and read from the time I got up until late in the night.  I'd forget to eat.  I'd lose sleep.  And when at last I did shut off the lights, I'd try to block out thoughts of whatever I'd done wrong (there was always something) by inserting myself into the books I read: putting myself on the island of the Swiss Family Robinson, in Laura Ingall's house on the prairie, in a cozy hobbit hole, on the Orient Express.

Sometimes my reading has been wonderful and beneficial; I've learned and been exposed to new ideas, experienced wonder and beauty, grown mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  (Go figure, those things they say in the public service announcements for your local library really are true.)  But I have to admit that sometimes, picking up a book or a magazine, or even reading a blog post. has been a way for me to escape into someone else's mind, a world someone else creates for me, while I avoid being present in the world right here around me.

Since my conversation with Mark, I've been making an effort to change my programming, to try (often with his help) to look up and shut the book or the computer when someone is talking to me.  When I am able to manage it, I've noticed I'm often annoyed.  I find it difficult to focus, as I'm often all too eager to leave my real life and plunge back into the familiar fantasy of someone else's words.  But at least this notice I'm taking of my annoyance and impatience is, if not comfortable or natural, at least a form of presence in my real life, one I've never had before.

After the meeting
waiting for Mark to come out,
I saw a good friend.

I think to myself,
"It's quite a coincidence
seeing David here."

"What are the chances
that we're here on a weeknight
in the same church lot?"

But then it hit me:
I forgot that David is
a sex addict too.

These 12 Step meetings —
weeknight evenings in this church —
were how he met Mark.

After all these years,
holidays, birthdays, dinners,
he's just our friend Dave.

Mark comes. I tell him:
addiction's forgettable;
laughter shakes our car.

A different haiku
for this Haiku Friday was
right here on my blog.

Good thing I'm not that absent minded.

I walked up to the teller. She did not ask me if I'd forgotten anything and she did not tell me that it was usually customary to bring the money for the deposit with me. (You were scared I was going to lose that hefty deposit, weren't you?) I smiled, got that reassuring receipt and headed off to Target with my daughter. When we got to the front of the line with our purchases, and I reached into my purse to get that $25 cash I had set aside, I found that my wallet was... empty.

Oops! Apparently, I wasn't absent minded enough to lose all the money, just some of it. The cash must have been left sitting on the table where I filled out the deposit ticket while watching my daughter play peekaboo. Like Uncle Billy, I retraced my steps and like him I came up empty handed. Fortunately, this is not going to precipitate the kind of meltdown the Bailey family experienced, but I still don't think I should be trusted with cash anymore. I only hope someone out there is enjoying my $25 and it didn't end up in the hands of someone like old man Potter.