Happy New Year!

Thus begins a new year: the kids are all off to school, the house is clean (for the moment) and I feel strangely content. Dare I say, organized even. Perhaps this is the fantasy of every housewife - not that Brad Pitt (Or Angelina. Or both of them.) drop by wearing nothing but brownie batter, but that there be a moment of silence. No one clamouring for my attention, no ringing phone or overflowing email account, nothing waiting to be wiped, folded or defrosted. More than anything, though, it's a mental silence, a moment for the brain to rejuvenate.

CNN ran the story today that "Multitasking May Be Bad for Your Brain" as though it were news. I think I'm going to create my own scientific organization to respond to stories like these. I'll call it the International Consortium for the Study of Duh. I'm not a religious person, but I think the story of Genesis is the ultimate cautionary tale about multitasking: In six days He created a universe of wonders that included a woman, a snake and a fruit tree, along with some confusing anti-fruit rules. Multitasking: o. Duh: 1.

But multitasking is a hard habit to break. How many times a week do I drive 75 on the highway while groping for a Scooby Doo DVD that's fallen on the floor? How many times can my brother install apps on his iPhone while simultaneously viewing ads for the newest iPhone? Our Congress - the same guys who wrote the Patriot Act - are engaged in at least one war (someone should remind them) AND rewriting US health care. Good luck with that.

Newsweek wrote an article a few months back about Obama as the Blackberry President. Their central thesis was, Can the President - can anyone? - be effective despite the distractions of modern life? I read this article on a plane, and while I read it my seven year old son drove a Hot Wheel back and forth across the page, the text popping in and out from beneath tiny plastic tires. I laughed and thought, Fuck, if Obama, a professor of Constitutional law, can't focus in spite of a little 'ol Crackberry, then what hope is there for the rest of us?

So maybe this blog is a stretch for me, another item on a laundry list of people and tasks that tug at me, as eager for my undivided attention as my three kids. But as I said, I'm feeling organized, and that's not a word I've been able to use with a straight face for a long time. I might regret this, but for now, let the blogging begin.