Healthy people live in a different country than people who face chronic illness. Sometimes when I'm around other mothers I forget I have peculiar health problems. After all, we talk about bizarre infections, uncertain test results and emergency surgeries all the time. When I mentioned that getting evaluations of my degenerative spinal condition was delaying the conception of a second child, I didn't mean to direct the conversation away from kids, but my friend, Nan seemed shocked.

What can they do to stop that? she asked.

I've always taken a great deal of pleasure in mocking people who believe there are earth-shattering regional differences within the United States, as though people from California and Ohio are formed out of some fundamentally different DNA, as though they don't all get screwed over in their jobs every day and then go home to watch the same episode of Friends.

But I'm having a seriously hard time listening to Boston radio talk about the Iowa caucuses as if they are some bizarre Martian ritual. The same argument within Iowa would bother me not at all, but for some reason hearing Joe Klein argue that "Iowans don't have three hours to spend on this" makes me want to grab him by the throat. How would YOU know? It brings out the inner provincial in me.

When I became a mother, part of me thought I had to undergo a radical personality overhaul. I had been ambitious, prone to curse, ironic, and rebellious-- often in a rather adolescent form. None of this struck me as mom material.

Moms, I thought, were people who were simultaneously perky and selfless. Sure I'll head up the PTA book sale! I'd love to. They were enthusiastic about service-- anything to help their children. They were efficient and resourceful.