Qwerty

Did you think I'd abandoned you? I was pretty sure I hadn't, though finishing what I've started has not always come easily to me. Maybe it would; I've hardly tried.

I think I'm getting a camera for Christmas. If not I will gift one to myself shortly thereafter.

I admit it, I've gotten swept up in the put-everything-on-hold-it's-the-holidays mentality. And writing is one of the easier things for me to procrastinate.

Here's a tip:
When text messaging, it is much easier to type "manana" than it is "tomorrow".

Here's another:
Garlic tea just might work wonders. I had a lot of it last night and I've yet to see a vampire.

I shall return.

Oh, and...

...this is not a "blog"; it is an online diary. Hannah named it that, and I think I'll keep it. Or online journal, if you will.

Miles to go...

Okay, my biggest fan, here goes:

Insomnia has crept back into my life, it seems. Changing the day, changing the night, in the words of Nick Cave, whose concert I had tickets to a month or so after 9/11; when we got to the Beacon, it had been canceled. I don't quite recall what we did after cocktails at an amiable gay bar on the Upper West Side, but I'm sure it didn't go smoothly. Things didn't those days.

Here is a poem I like:

Whose woods these are I think I know
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the wood and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

These woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I first became aware of that one (that's Robert Frost, by the way) in Jamaica. I still have the journal where one of the gents we were traveling with crafted his version of the piece one boozy rainy everythingy afternoon.

And now, I must attempt that bed thing again. Argh. I'll try to read, not be able to, and then be wide awake again. Why not just go to sleep? People ask. Would that it were that easy, non-insomniacs -- somniacs -- of the world. Somniac. I like it.

Sometimes I feel like this:

Kris Kringle

Zimmerman

When we were in high school, Mrs. Zimmerman, who held some position I never quite understood, spoke to everyone at morning meeting one day. Her talk was about honoring the commitments we've made.

"Nobody likes a woman they can't depend on," she said repeatedly. Or something like that -- in the rewriting of it some 20 years later, that phrasing strikes me as odd.

Anyway, Tara and I got a lot of mileage out of that -- repeating it to one another admonishingly to this day.

She had a point, Mrs. Zimmerman, and I think the specifics she discussed were students' signing up for community service or clubs and then not following through. We were all women at the time -- the school has since turned co-ed -- and there was a heavy emphasis on the extra-curricular.

I have since become a woman upon whom one has not always been able to depend. A lot of people like me; I'm nice. But I have broken, postponed, and slept through many a plan in my day. And I've been given an abundance of second, third, fourth and fifth chances. Though I may have found loopholes in her phrasing, I can not argue with her sentiment: Thou shalt do thy best to honor thy commitments. Those I've broken with friends and family members I've had subsequent chances to redeem. Those I've broken with myself ... I've largely given up on, substituted other projects for the abandoned ones.

And so it is, the first of my new year's resolutions, admitted to with trepidation and hope: I will do my best to write something in this blog (blech -- that word embarrasses me) every day ... until I get to the point where I can skip a day or two or three -- even longer -- without fear that my momentum has forever faded.

And if I don't post every day, I will not abandon this project.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

I believe the above warm-fuzzy is the translation of a phrase etched in stone toward the beginning of the Catacombs, in Paris, at the Denfert-Roche-something metro.

I know a little bit about a lot of things. And that's fine.

Slush

It's slushing outside right now. Big glops of icy water falling from the sky, turning black as soon as they hit the ground. My head's feeling pretty slushy too, having not slept (none of me has) since yesterday morning. We were up late and then I just couldn't fall asleep. It's hard to explain to people who don't have first-hand experience how this particular type of insomnia manifests. I'm totally exhausted and wide awake at the same time. My body's heavy, my mind's all jumbled, but some extra part I have that makes me a bona fide insomniac is so not tired it's practically vibrating.

I have so many things I'd like to write about but I just don't think my mind can move as quickly as I'd need it to tonight. Or maybe that's me rationalizing. Probably the latter.

I shall return. And I will write about some of the topics Cheech and I have been delving into.

My dog is eating a brazil nut.

I look at you and I sigh ...

I've just learned this poem, by Yeats:

Wine comes in at the mouth
and love comes in at the eye
That's all we shall know for truth
Until we grow old and die
I lift the glass to my mouth
I look at you and I sigh.

Good stuff, Will.