I'm so sick of resolutions, aren't you? I don't need them this year. I know what I'm going to do -- edit until I'm exhausted, proofread until my eyes burn (the way it feels when Jersey shore sand gets caught under the lid or chlorine coats the cornea), revise and send out poetry and hope that one of my verses (even a short and sloppy one) is published, rock my newborn son to sleep whenever he is fussy, read my favorite books to my son, change my son, feed my son, take a million pictures of my son, love my son.

Well, here it is. My period is back. Has it really been a whole year since I had it last? (Just as it’s been a year since I posted on this site – A YEAR!) How fast a year goes!

There’s nothing to like about having a period except that it was able to stop for this beautiful boy. Having it again feels like I never stopped having it. Women understand. That familiar metallic scent, the cramps and moods … yet there is something reassuring about having it again now, knowing things are working right, my cycle returning as it was.

I wasn’t sure whether she was still alive, but I saw her today, stiffly jogging down one of the side streets by our house. I haven’t seen her in months, but of course I’ve hardly been out of the house since late October. I know she’s been out every day though, shuffling more than jogging, wildly swinging her long stick arms as if only that motion propels her. I don’t know how she stays alive, her body just bones, her expression tight over hollow cheeks and eye sockets. Sometimes I want to yell “Stop!” out my window, but she wouldn’t.

I saw a couple’s townhouse on television the other day, and their rooms were all neat and organized and sparsely decorated, and I started wondering where the REST of their things were, and when it dawned on me that they might not have many more things that what I saw, I actually felt an anxiety hit me, and I realized that this anxiety is part of my problem—that the idea of not having “things” piled around me in my house makes me feel that there is a great emptiness, an incompleteness, a lack of background and history and security.

Facebook is difficult for someone like me who craves having great friends and would like to reacquaint myself with cool coworkers from the past and classmates from middle school who would come over and hang out in my basement playroom and talk boys. I’m a Sagittarius, so of course this need can’t be helped—the desire to have a number of very close friends—so when I post online that I’d like to get together for coffee and a chat next time you’re in town visiting relatives I really mean it, but I doubt these old friends do, which sucks.

Outside my kitchen window I can see an intersection and its corresponding traffic light, best viewed in winter, when the trees have lost leaves. These days, when I tend to K at an early hour, I look out that window and wonder who is driving the car speeding by. I’d like to think it’s a young guy heading back to his small apartment after being unable to break away from the woman he finally had the nerve to approach at church. But I bet it’s a guy with four kids coming home from the third shift of his second job.

Well, my cousin’s wife just found out they are having a girl in May. My second cousin is having a girl in two weeks. Our friend and the wife of our realtor is having a girl in a month. Years before I got pregnant, R told me that he was positive that we would have a girl if ever to conceive. He banked on it. (Not that that means much in this economy.) But we had our son in the fall. He is what we were meant to have, of course. I believe sincerely that things happen for a reason.

I have been thinking again about that romance novel I started more than a year ago, the one sitting on this computer in the form of chapters 1 to 4. I reread some of it last week, and the writing is actually pretty good. (Usually I hate my words this much later.) I could work on it in the early morning after caring for K, but then when would I actually sleep? I could write a page each day, after I do these 100 words. That’s the only way it’ll get done. For now I should meet the characters again.

I am sitting in front of the computer early in the morning after taking care of K, and I have the urge [compulsion, need] to check that self-help Web site that I used to go to all the time back when I was living with anxiety as a soul mate. I should stay away from it, I know that. It may only make me feel more anxious right now. “But what if it helps,” the other side throws at me. What if the boards really help right now? I’m curious if the site is even still there. What to do.

For once I have no work to do this weekend, and so I promised myself that I would spend lots of time with K -- reading, singing, playing. So far I have sung two songs to him. The rest of my time I have spent shopping online, reading things online, changing lightbulbs, posting photos to Facebook, playing Guitar Hero, and writing out to-do lists. Not so great. When he wakes I’ll spend the time I promised with him. Until then, I’d better clean and sort paperwork, organize receipts to file my taxes, update my checkbook. This place is a mess.

For once I have no work to do this weekend, and so I promised myself that I would spend lots of time with K -- reading, singing, playing. So far I have sung two songs to him. The rest of my time I have spent shopping online, reading things online, changing lightbulbs, posting photos to Facebook, playing Guitar Hero, and writing out to-do lists. Not so great. When he wakes I’ll spend the time I promised with him. Until then, I’d better clean and sort paperwork, organize receipts to file my taxes, update my checkbook. This place is a mess.

I can't believe how fast time is passing since the morning I learned I was pregnant. The nine months of pregnancy went by as quickly as a shutter snaps in a camera. (Do any still snap this way?) I suppose it flew by because each day was a blessing and felt wonderful. And now I can't believe he has been here for 8 weeks. His smile makes me smile. Was I ever that young? Am I doing enough for him every day? I feel that I am not and must focus on singing, reading, teaching, talking, playing. How to slow down ...

I’m really sick of living in this apartment, and it’s not the apartment, really, because if we threw out half of our stuff and bought new, nice things and redecorated, then I am sure that I would feel better about living here, but it’s the fact that the same 80s framed print has been in the dining room since Day 1 and the berry wreath that my sister made has dripped its way down the wall as the ribbon slowly unties and the book shelves have horizontal novels in front of vertical tomes and it is all just too much.

Each morning after I feed my son, we read four poems together. We have started with the collected poems of Jane Kenyon, not only because she is a favorite but also because her writing is so accessible and full of natural images. I want to write a poem about how we read these, how the morning sun comes through the window on the pages, but I am not sure how to begin. I suppose just beginning there will do. I haven’t written in so long that the thought is foreign to me, like putting on skis at a mountain lodge.

Because the mortgage rates are so good we feel extra pressure to find a house. We look at the listings every day. Our realtor’s list shows the same houses day in and day out: no basement, only one bathroom, no yard, two bedrooms … things we just don’t want. There is a house for sale by owner in the town we want, but I don’t know about the owner thing. I fear that by the time better houses are offered the rates will be higher. I fear we will buy in a town we don’t like. I hate this stress.

Finally I am back to singing with my madrigal group (thanks to a wonderful hubby who sits with our son for those hours!). I missed sitting on the tall, thin stools around the wide art table. I missed riffling through my manila folder trying to find the next piece to sing. I missed sight reading. I missed trying to get German words out quick enough and correctly. I missed counting rests and quarter notes. I missed listening for the perfect blend of voices. I missed walking the gallery at the break. I missed driving the winding Jersey roads at night.

Today we went shopping for larger clothes for our growing son (who is at the 97th percentile for height and weight, the bruiser!) with a really great coupon for a local store (retailers are incredibly desperate it seems) and I ended up trying on pants for myself, as I can hardly fit into anything I own right now (baby weight sucks), and to accommodate my wide midsection I needed to get two sizes larger than I first picked out, and looking at myself in the dressing room mirror I scrunched up my face and vowed to eat even more salad.

Tonight my husband is making chili with small black and pink beans, ground turkey, chopped tomatoes, thick pieces of softened translucent onion, rectangles of green pepper (which I pick out because I hate hate hate peppers), and chorizo (which I also typically don’t like but will eat in this dish). Because I am on a diet I take half a bowl, but honestly, who can eat only half a bowl of chili? And then I destroy my diet by coating the top of the chili with grated sharp cheddar from Vermont. Why bother eating it if you don’t add cheese?

I’m pretty disappointed in my 2009 100 Words entries so far. Have any been overly creative or poetic or in essence what I really wanted to say? I don’t think so. I thought I’d use the entries to write magical pieces about my son, but so far I’ve written nothing like that. I know I’ve just started writing again after a year so I should go easy on myself, but I am never easy on myself, so why start now. Perhaps the creative coffee from having a son needs to percolate longer than 12 weeks. Yes, that must be it.

I feel obligated to write about the inauguration today. For most of the entire day I sat and watched the coverage with K on my lap. I admit to crying a bit during the John Williams piece. Music always makes a huge event emotional for me. And now that K is in our lives, I want more than ever a new and positive start to a better America. I was hoping for a more inspiring poem from Elizabeth Alexander, but at least he had a poet there. Obama’s speech was very good. The crowd was amazing. Too much for words.

It is possible that I am too annoying to talk to for very long these days, that my worrying and complaining does push people away, especially my friends who most often just talk to me over the phone. I’ve noticed that some friends have seemed less than enthusiastic when speaking to me lately, and I wonder if they are sick of me and my blabbering about the same things repeatedly with that same down, negative tone. I become so uncomfortable when I feel I must force a conversation when I know that a friend is tired of talking to me.

There used to be an arcade on Route 17 that had lots of boardwalk games for little kids and pinball and short bowling alleys and laser tag and the classic arcade games and a cool 1950s diner-like cafe, and we used to go there to shoot dinosaurs on this video game or play Ms. Pac-Man, and I used to think how I would bring my child there one day so he or she could win a huge stuffed animal but just like everything in this damn county it is gone to make way for some crappy overpriced store.

We’ve been looking at houses again, but I’m hoping that more come on the market in the spring. I always feel the same way when I see a house: This is fine, but I wish I could feel something in this damn place … I wish I could see myself here … I wish there were more property. It’s come to the point where I think I would rather live in a town I love and have a basic house. I’ve come to love just being around my hometown more than I care about the size of the living room.

Seems all I do is worry day after day: Will I still have a 401k next time I look at the statement? When can I find the time to talk to my financial adviser? Will that pain be there the next time? Can we afford to do what we want to do in the future based on how much I can make with K here? Is our idea on vaccines the right one? Will K and I be able to relate on the same level, have the same perspectives? Thoughts like a whirlwind and I can’t stop them from ruling.

Who is she? The black markings were too specific to be any other tribe. He could feel the muscles of his forehead tighten as his brows fell, as he focused on her smooth cheek and as he desperately tried to remember if he knew her then, who she might be. His right hand automatically went out, his fingers stretching to draw her hair farther back from the brand, but she flinched and stepped back, and he quickly brought his arm down to his side. She knew he knew; her eyes said everything.

“Why didn’t you tell me you are Yadi?”

“I did.” She breathed in quickly. “I tried.” She crossed her arms over her chest, her right hand running up and down her left bicep, flexed and tight. “In the lounge that one night. You were called away.”

He thought back to that conversation. He couldn’t sleep and had stopped in, seen her sitting in the back. They spoke briefly, but the captain had paged him and he had left. Was that jealousy in her voice? He knew the rumors that floated around, what some thought of his relationship with the captain. But there was nothing to it. Not anymore.

“You could have tried again.” His voice came out rough, as if he was scolding her, and he watched as his words lit fire in her eyes. The left side of her fine lip curved up, but she wouldn’t speak. They stood on that balcony facing each other, letting the wind play over them, swirling her dress around her ankles. She didn’t seem willing to open up about this new discovery, and they had to leave. “The conference is ending. We’re expected at the ship.” He moved his left arm straight out, indicating the doors with an open hand. “Please.”

She turned quickly, carrying herself to the balcony doors in firm, long strides, pushing out her dress in a silky cascade with a forceful jut of her foot. It had been so long since she’d dressed up that she’d forgotton how much power she felt like this: the bare skin of her chest catching the eyes of the world, the deep angle of her foot strapped in her shoes, each step shaking her as the ball of her foot hit the floor. She refused to look back, tried to sense if he was right behind her, but she couldn’t tell.

She used to be able to feel many things -- sense when the smallest animals were close to the village, hiding in the brush. She even knew the smell of others, know if they were close: breathe in her mother’s loneliness, taste her brother’s anger. Now her senses were dulled, and she’d lost her link to those around her. She felt disconnected from her own senses since she left her planet, passing on a quiet life there, following a dream he’d unknowingly started for her just before she became a woman. How could she tell him she knew him then?

On our way to our music class we drive through an area that many deer populate, some deep sloping grass that smack up to woods, a large manmade lake on the other side of the road. The sky is wide over this place, and the moon is always high and dim, seeming so much farther away there. I feel an excitement driving through there each week, and a fear too. I want to see the deer and I don’t. I want to catch their eyes in my headlights and I want them to stay away. They are dangerous and beautiful.

Out today at a baby store, bringing K on a shopping trip for the first time, maneuvering the stroller, taking a peek at all the other babies in all the other strollers, assessing the other strollers, the other mothers and fathers, the items they are buying, the looks on their faces, their strides and coats and purses and conversations and body language and trying to decide if my son matches up, if I am matching up, if my stroller is better or my son looks older or cuter or acts the same and I vowed I’d never do these things.