I've been scanning the mom-blogosphere and many are blogging about the onset of fall. One chipper mom spoke of fall as a time to renew: renewing "family goals" (what are those?), cleaning up the house and so on. I assume she means doing dull organized things like getting your digital photos printed and albumed and buying new fridge magnets for the kids' schedules. Me, I see fall as a time to get really, really depressed.

We had a swell summer. Capped off by a lovely Labor Day weekend. We went to Portland, OR (read all about the voyage here) and while Crabtot attempted to throw rocks into Portland's impressive Zen garden, it was an otherwise serene way to spend summer's last official weekend.

Back in Wyoming, the sun still shines (as it always does, relentlessly, even when it's minus 50), but there's a sharpness in the air. Stand in the shade and you need a down jacket. So I'm turning to depressing reading. I'm liking very much Arlington Park, by Brit novelist Rachel Cusk. It's about miserable moms in uspcale British suburbs. They all loathe themselves and their families, and rattle around in enormous gourmet kitchens. Apparently, Cusk also wrote a controversial nonfic book about how horrible it is to be a mom. Which makes me think she's probably a great mom. At its best, Cusk's novel reminds me of THE great novel of domestic doom, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. (If you're married and have kids, it's best to read that book stone drunk.)

Here's a snippet from Arlington Park, when this mom character goes shopping for dinner. It captures the light mood I'm talking about:

Amanda felt that if she were not married, it would not have been required of her to go to the butcher. These visits seemed to emanate from a core of physical embroilment, from a  fleshly basis that sought out other flesh by which to feed itself. It all seemed somehow grotesquely related, the conjoining and making of bodies and the dismemberment and ingestion of them.

It's getting heavy and heady here at Crabmommy. Curl up with a book. Get depressed. Keep me company.