For our first supper of 2008 I make black bean soup. The bacon renders its slippery fat to the large pot. The white onions heat to soft translucence. The fine garlic leaves its scent then all but disappears. Cubes of chopped tomatoes make a graphic entry. Chicken stock lightens it all. Then the thick slide of black beans, and a wide stir. A gentle boil brings slow bubbles to the surface. A course bunch of cilantro and the squeeze of a fat lime. Shredded cheese and sour cream in the bowl, thick sourdough bread on the side. Happy new year.

Now that the coldest winds have come through and stripped the maple trees of all their leaves, only squirrels’ nests remain, stubbornly wedged at the joints of trunk and dull, gray branches. Two others here are at the ends of thin twigs and seem to hold on as if by magic. The neighbor’s tortoiseshell cat suns herself on the edge of the back deck, trying to catch the thin light on her fur. Beyond her I can see the stream, but it hardly moves today. The neighbor boy’s inner tube sits on a leaf pile, waiting for the next snow.

I’m getting all my editing done, remembering to take my large purple vitamin, keeping up with the dirty dishes, getting more sleep, eating somewhat better, so why don’t these first days of the new year feel any different to me? I do feel happier in a sense, having made certain decisions about this new year, things to do and not to do. But I still need to make time at night to do more, to clean, to write to friends, to read. I don’t think I’ll ever stop pushing myself to do more, but these days the pushing is exhausting.

These January mornings are so cold that I rush from bed, gather quickly any clothes I can find, and run to the bathroom, laying them by the sink so when I finish my hot shower (getting cool too soon now that downstairs neighbors share the water) I can change immediately, standing by the old radiator hidden behind its grate cover. This reminded me of something almost forgotten: when my mother would turn my pink feety pajamas in the basement dryer so I would be toasty when I crawled into bed, the plastic on the feet bottoms too hot to touch.

There are times like this, when I sit and do my own thing, when I know not to push him or ask him when we’ll be going out, knowing that his silence this morning means he needs his space for whatever reasons, so I sit and write and work and eat and drink British breakfast tea made using one of those round bags without the string and wonder when we’ll be heading out to do the weekend errands but not wanting to bring it up even though it hangs in the air like a piñata I want to smash open.

The new dim sum place wasn’t quite what we thought it would be. Seems they serve dim sum only during a short span of afternoon time and we were there at night, coming out of a cold winter rain. We rested toward the back and waited for a table to open up. A fake Christmas tree was erected in the middle of a narrow koi pond, but the fish didn’t seem to mind. The two large speckled bass that were wrestled into a flimsy green net and out of the large tank back by the bar did seem to mind.

I’ve never been able to figure this out, but I – the writer and editor – am not good at thank-you cards. There are many that I need to send out (some are six months late) and yet I procrastinate. It’s not that I mind the writing part, and I like picking out which stamp to use. I wish I had a personalized return address sticker, but that’s not it. I admit that finding the time to sit and get it done is difficult. Now that I think about it, maybe I just love procrastinating and the cards are a moot point.

So far this year (probably because I have been ill with the flu) I have not felt like writing creatively, devising any poems or even flash fiction. I once heard that Stephen King came up with one of his novel plots in a fit of severe illness, but I don’t think that the flu will help me write. I’m sick of the television (too much Family Guy) and can work only in small bursts. How come I am at home and interact with no one and I am the one who comes down with vile viruses? Flu, you contemptible shrew!

A friend just called on his iPhone (bastard) to say “I am on for Friday; tell your husband to call me later.” I paused and thought, Friday? What is on Friday? Oh no. He did NOT invite people over for Friday. Then he asked me how I was doing, and I managed in my gravel voice, “I have the flu.” This was the exact moment that he lost signal, of course, because I had to say it again. He told me to eat chicken soup and rest, but curiously he did not mention begging off or bringing a SARS mask.

Things I do not miss about working in an office: Polluting the air with my car as I commute for more than an hour each day. Figuring out what I want to eat for lunch hours before I have to eat it. Rushing to finish up a project so that I can leave before tons of people get on the road. Things I miss about working in an office: Planning outfits to wear. Working out a question with a coworker who has an informed opinion. Being part of a team. Training someone with promise how to be a good editor.

When he walked into the lab, he heard a beautiful voice in a high squeal, followed by laughter bouncing off the clean tile floor. The base captain led him to the back of the wide room, where he saw her for the first time. She was in a tight white coat, her straight brown-black hair swaying as she ducked and turned from her colleagues. A mass of large prismatic bubbles clung to the back of her sleeve. She turned to throw her own foam at her nearest colleague but, seeing the base captain walking toward her, immediately stood at attention.

This late at the bar, the only other person in the room was the bartender. He was wiping a rag over the curved wood at the far end. She sat at the last table in the back, facing the entrance, a stylus in hand poised over the electronic pad. She hadn’t been able to write anything, thinking only of her last dressing down earlier that day, the smallest of infractions being called out. It was such a regular occurrence that she knew his earthy scent, the gold flecks in his dark eyes, the tick of his tongue on hard consonants.

Yes, I am addicted to awards shows. Typically I don’t care about celebrity nonsense, but there is something about the Oscar glitz, seeing who is dressed in what, who will win what and give a clever speech, if someone will win for the first time or someone will finally win. Of course, this year seems to be a total bust for that, and I am depressed. So I’ve decided that I’ll get my popcorn out anyway and wrap myself up in my fuzzy blanket for … the Westminster Kennel Club show. Yes people, dogs will have to do this year!

I think that yesterday’s post made it seem as if I never watch the dog show. On the contrary … I watch it every year. There are four new breeds making their debut this year. Of the four, I like the Swedish Vallhund the best – a small multicolored wolf that looks ready for anything. A few years ago I really wanted to buy a Shiba Inu pup I saw, but I resisted. Turned out that our good friends bought one last year, and he’s a great dog. I always root for them along with the beagles and the Norwegian Elkhound.

Out on the balcony the breeze was light, and two small moons folded a surprisingly muted silver gleam over the city. She leaned against the cool copper railing, listening to the background talk and laughter from inside, watching fat green leaves of tall, strange trees dance and make the city lights come and go from view. She held her bare arms, looked down to watch the gauzy eggplant fabric of her gown swirl around her ankles. She felt beautiful and alive, the first time in two months that she’d felt like anything but a soldier, a worker bee, a failure.

The general had goaded them into dancing. After the music ended she’d excused herself, quickly exiting out the side of the hall. After 10 minutes making small talk at the table, he’d taken his own leave and started walking the whole of the expansive top floor. He felt her before he came to the open double doors—an energy that set his skin aflame. And when he turned to the balcony he saw her, her dark hair gathered in full loops at the back of her neck, purple satin hugging her curves, her light brown arms folded over one another.

She heard someone step onto the balcony and knew it was he who had come for her. She guessed what would be next: He would tell her that they must go, that the gathering was coming to a close and farewells were in order. He wouldn’t be able to be a person who wasn’t her commander. But before the next thought came he was standing to her right, leaning at the copper rail, looking out to the silver-washed city, taking the night air deep into his chest. “It’s beautiful,” he said in the softest voice she’d ever heard him use.

She agreed with him-—the city was beautiful. They had kept their gaze to the horizon, standing perfectly still. He wanted to tell her they could stay all night, watch for shooting stars, head into the city and practice dancing, things he’d never thought to tell anyone. But they were expected back on the ship, and it was late. He turned to her, and she turned in response. "We should—-" And then he saw them, on the rosy skin of her cheek, desperately trying to hide under her thick hair: the dark lines of the Yadi tribe. His tribe.

The old German words of the madrigal piece were hard to pronounce, and the eighth notes were tough to sing. The paint-flecked stool cut the circulation from the back of her legs. The look of the thick yellow-green glue that had been spilled on the art table fooled her into believing it was wet liquid, but after touching its bumpy surface, she realized she could stop trying to avoid the rivulets. The music had five parts, and she kept forgetting to read the middle stanza. The bottom of her old cords were dirty with city sludge stains from winters ago.

As grey as the asphalt slab of storm cloud that is paved over the inlet of the small Atlantic island. As grey as the fine cold ashes of the last maple log that burned out in the middle of the campfire circle under the New Hampshire stars. As grey as the valves of the mussels eaten by the grizzled old man from Bruges with his frites at the small café near the corner store. As grey as the fieldstone packed around the fireplace in the old cabin, where the skin of the old brown bear covers the warped hardwood floor.

We stopped at my in-laws’ house so R could pick up his old Gamma World stuff and so he could clear their Mac in-box. Seems that a family friend keeps sending them random “fun” things in PowerPoint, which they don’t have so can’t see so keep getting frustrated, understandably. While R dug for the gaming box (trapped somewhere in his old bedroom closet) I looked for something to read, watch, do, as my in-laws were out somewhere. After a minute I became frustrated, closing my eyes as I sat on the couch: Why do I always need something to do??

At the gym, most TV sets were talking of Heath Ledger—nothing new from when I’d heard of it earlier that afternoon, but still, I craned my neck to read the captioning. All different images of his beautiful face, the crowd outside his Broom Street building. He was one of the male actors I followed, someone who seemed down to earth, a bit hippie, serious, good. I thought it was cool that they chose New York instead of CA, how he and Michelle lived right across the river, and I felt bad when they separated. Poor Matilda. How terribly sad.

My husband just read something that discussed going 21 days without complaining, so I said I would do it with him; now I’m wondering if that’s possible for me! This morning I told myself that instead of stressing out (as I always do) about the flood of work that had just come in, I would smile, be happy, and remind myself how fortunate I am to have these great clients who give me this high level of work so I can earn a living from home. And that smile really did change my perspective. Now for the 21 days . . .

Near the corner of a busy intersection around here sits a low, red building surrounded by a large parking lot, a neighborhood restaurant that you pass by and know immediately that it’s a “regulars” kind of place. It’s been there since the 1930s—the kind that serves those fat prime rib specials with the small baked potato for $11.95 and a hot roast beef on white toast. The kind that draws people who wouldn’t know what else to do on a Friday night if it weren’t there. Before we move from here, I’ve just got to eat there. Just once.

There is this obnoxious commercial on right now for a company that runs an employment site that posts salaried jobs over $100K. Two men are playing tennis. Suddenly the court is swarmed with people who want to get in on the match. Of course, they are (most often shown onscreen as) overweight sloppy people and/or people who are completely inept at no doubt most things, let alone tennis. The voice-over states the “problem” with letting everyone in on something, but that’s not even logical when applied to online job searching. And representing us all as asses is insulting to boot.

On the slick Paris street the early evening before last a lanky bicycle messenger rode by with his last package of the day strapped tightly to his back rack, the thick rectangle wrapped in a white plastic so a light spring raindrop would roll off and down and onto his thin rear tire, and make a quarter turn, then fall onto the asphalt of la Rue Monge, where it would puddle near the motorbike parked near the streetlight under her window, and then dance for a while with other drops before taking to the sewer and finally the mighty Seine.

At the aquarium in late afternoon, the inner circular room, full tanks as walls, the only light a blue-green glow from the backlit water. Tourists in oversized T-shirts move about as ghosts, bumping off each other. Children stare up openmouthed at the underbellies of the high-swimming sea turtles. Sea nettles float pink and orange in random paths. Long strands of rusted seaweed wave in the man-made currents. I am far away from where I was, too far from where I want to be. But I can breathe. In this peaceful place where no one knows I go, I can breathe.

She put her brush to the canvas and painted the scalloped edge of a daffodil, like the one that stood in a thin vase on her teacher’s desk across the room (an apology from the boyfriend for the screaming match they’d had in the parking lot last week), but the flower looked like a child’s attempt at painting the sun, so she started over and painted just the thin vase, but that ended up looking like a woman’s neck, and before she knew it, the neck had a wide hand grasping it, just like in the lot the week before.

Mercury, tiny planet near our star
we’ve come to pull the curtain,
opening night on the unseen.
You play your scarped and wrinkled
skin a dry pucker, pocked and
scarred. Shrinking with age,
you lose yourself over the cold,
such method acting.


Well I’ve had that part,
unable to fold up tight enough,
my core a rock of ice
I can’t melt down, my limbs
not limber enough to pack away,
my crawling skin ready to
turn inside out but I couldn’t
start the peel.


Volatile flight, I wish I knew you,
you winged path to the heart of dreams.

I have the receipt for those Keds sneakers I bought eight years ago (the ones with the rips up the sides that I threw out two years ago) and I have the cartoon sheets to the double bed I used to have when I was a kid even though we have just the king-size bed now and I have eighteen dead batteries from various gadgets because I haven’t been able to get to the recycling center just yet and I have the Paris wall calendar from 1993 because the black-and-white photos of the Metro stations remind me of my vacation.

It’s really amazing that the whole of January has slipped by. I started out the month with time on my hands and the flu, and now I’m extremely busy and have a headache. Between these poles I worked a lot and cleaned less. I haven’t been to the gym as much as I should have, but I’ve cooked some good dinners. I kept up with some friends and I finally wrote out thank-you cards. Successes and room for improvement, just like anyone else. Next month I need to get to the hairdresser, clean more, work out more. Sigh. We’ll see.