"So it's not your fault?" she asked.

"No. Not really."

"So it's Daddy's?"

"No."

"Your work?"

"No. Work is work."

"So whose fault is it?"

"Well, sometimes it's nobody's fault. Things just don't work out."

"Oh."

"It's harder when there's no one to blame, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

I finally started the newsletter I've been thinking about in my head since I sold THE OBVIOUS GAME. You can sign up for it in my left sidebar. It will only come out once a month.

I do not like to sign up for anything I haven't seen already, so here is this month's issue. I don't plan to deviate wildly from this format. I hope you subscribe!

(I've found I can't copy and paste because it's a table or some such nonsense, so here is the format.)

• Month-specific message of misguided brilliance
• Samples of this month's #morningstumble (links to the beautiful, the absurd or the funny)
• Updated Goodreads list of books I've read this month
• So I Read an Article Recently: I'll tell you what I saw that was interesting this month. Basically what I'd tell you if we were at a dinner party.
• Links to my books and anything new I've published around the Interweb, natch.

That's it!

So tonight I was wearing a shirt like this. (I love you, Raygun. Keep it klassy.)

So then we tried to explain Prince to my daughter.

(Cannot be pronounced. Screw you and the contract you rode in on, Warner Bros.)

Then we tried to introduce her to the greatest Prince song of all time, Seven.

Then we tried to explain the '80s phenomenon of Purple Rain.

Then we found THIS.

(hang in until the one minute mark)

And that concludes this evening's lesson on being awesome.  Congratulations, Eva. Goodnight, children.

This past weekend I was grouchy. I'm at the hardest part of my half-marathon training, so I'm tired physically a lot. We just had a week solid of sultry, sweaty days and thick summer nights. Labor Day means the neighborhood pools closed, it means the end of summer, it means looking ahead and jam-packed schedules and my husband's weekday travel and early-morning choir runs. It means it will get cold again, and I hate being cold more than any other weather scenario. Freezing drizzle. I hate freezing drizzle.

Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama.

I know every parent has this recording running in the background of their lives, and usually my patience is good. Decent, at least. But coming off two weeks of solid husband-traveling-back-to-schooling-work-is-crazying chaos, my patience: She is so depleted. My patience packed her bags on Friday and walked out the damn door for a long Vegas weekend.

So I snapped when my girl waited until I was out of earshot (not hard, my hearing is getting worse and worse) and then asked some question that I didn't answer over and over and over. I didn't want to underdog on the swing eighty times. I didn't feel like going over to look at the shiny thing she found at the street fest.

I. Just. Wanted. To. Be. Alone.

Then I remembered the article she just turned in for her junior reporter role at a local magazine. It was a list of guidelines for trick-or-treaters. All the things I've been drilling into her head for the past eleven years were there, and when I emailed the piece to her editor, I felt the shock of "she's so grown up" reverberate down my spine.

But she does still need me. Or at least, she still wants me, and what am I doing? Swatting her away like the sweat running down my cheeks on the summer days I'll mourn the first time I have to wear socks.

Why can't I appreciate what I have when I have it?

Just a reminder, Rita. You're still her mama.

MAMA. MAMA. MAMA.