I.

I nearly got scammed the other day on the phone. ME. I used to be so smart. I can only assume that some portion of "coughing my brains out" is to be taken literally. Yes! I'm still sick; two weeks and I can't stop this coffin. In a way it is a guilty sweetness to know that now I am keeping the neighbors awake with all my racket. But I would rather be well and listening to them than feeling like this, if we're being honest.

II

I got a nice letter from a man I've been editing for for two years now, who likes how "rigorous" I am, and mentions how odd it is that we haven't met. I do generally like the anonymity of my job, the fact that people don't know where I live or how old I am and some don't know I'm female. Like, hey, what a treat to be evaluated on the basis of really truly MY WORK. And with the exception of things like biographies, CVs, etc., to only be able to know the people I work for on the basis of THEIR WORK. I also got a couple e-mails on work I did earlier in the month to the effect that going over what I had done made them understand how to be better writers overall. I get this comment every year or so but it never fails to boost me for months at a time.

III

Third place at quiz night on Thursday, which was a little sad because we had disagreed about some answers and in a couple cases the wrong answer had prevailed. That's always frustrating. This was somewhat alleviated by learning that in fact I had gotten one answer (marked wrong) actually right, and while that half point totally didn't make a difference in the placing, it still felt pretty good.

IV

I'm at the point in the Pulitzer readings where pretty much all that's left is straight white men doing stories about straight white men. I am so ridiculously tired of Oh My Sad Impotence or Oh It Is Hard To Be a Drunk and a Sad Sack but Siiiiiiiigh Here I Am. And the next three in the list are Updike, Cheever, and Mailer. Oh dear heavens, that doesn't bode well. I may skip ahead to something more appetizing. It's my game, so I can make up the rules.

V

This advertisement for the Guardian is pretty much what I hate about where journalism is going. 

Here, let me take the nasty taste out of your mouth with some Christopher Walken telling the same story.

Jackhammers from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. outside the building next door. I don't know what they're doing it for, but it looks like a long project.

I went to a birthday party on Saturday and danced and danced and only stepped on a few feet with enough force to actually hurt anybody. Whoops. How the room swirled. I left at 2 a.m. with the music still blaring behind me for at least a half a block.

On Sunday the cold I had been fighting came and took up residence inside my sleepiness. I sneezed so hard I threw my back out. I highly recommend having a teenager at such times. Doubly so if they can cook. It is hard not to pretend to feel worse than I do, just to extend the loveliness of being tended to, treated like a fragile thing. I think he's on to me, though.

When I was little and I couldn't sleep I would match my breathing to my parents' down the hall. Not really snoring, but I could hear them, heavy and slow breaths through the night. And the first time I lived with someone other than my parents, I found myself also matching my breath to his, this breath lighter and faster than I was used to, but I learned. Putting myself to sleep by promising myself that everyone else was asleep; that if they thought it was safe it probably was. In, out, in, out. I did that any time I was with someone long enough to trust them; put my trust in their hands; put their breath in my lungs. When I was single I tried counting between breaths to prime numbers, sometimes even getting as far as 11 before realizing that I wasn't putting myself to sleep so much as suffocating, though that also works. Anyway last night I was counting on number five and I realized that I would probably not breathe with anybody again, and for a minute that seemed kind of sad, but five works pretty well and I breathed in for five and when I exhaled I blew that little puff of sadness away, because it IS safe enough to fall asleep, at least until the jackhammers start up again.

Something better is percolating, but I had to skim this stuff off the top first to give it room. 

I have days of exhaustion where I will sleep 10 hours through the night, take 2 hour naps from which I struggle to wake myself, then back to bed as early as 8 or 9, feeling like I've plowed fields all day, absolute physical exhaustion, although sometimes the most exciting thing I've done is get the mail. Then I have days with bursts of energy approximately equal to my early 20s. Like, hours of varnishing the floor or clearing out all the cabinets or something weekendy, but after a full day of working. 

I am thisclose to caftans. I'm not kidding this time.

The AMA is still refusing to accept plural pronouns as gender-neutral singulars, or however I should say it, but anyway it makes me mad. I spent a good chunk of the day writing around sentences with "he or she" because I hate it too much to let it stay. It's the 21st century. There is a perfectly simple solution. It's not traditional, but the problem is not traditional and so the solution has to be whatever works, which is: Everyone raised their hand. I'm over it, and I am not the most modern of militant grammarians.

If you are trying to find out how Whitney Houston died, I think we were never friends.

Oh, Squire went to camp for a week. His absence was like a cut thumb. He seems to have fun, although it took him 15 hours of sleep to return to his normal upright position. Now he's back to normal, and made me dinner so I could wrestle all the pronouns to the ground and put another checkmark next to another task on the list.

Why yes as a matter a fact I did cut my own hair using paper scissors and a hand-held mirror. You wanna make something of it? I mean: please. I expect it's a big ol' mess back there, and it only doesn't bother me because I can't see it all at once. 

Stumbled in a sidewalk hole next to a bus stop last night and pitched forward, accidental planking on the sidewalk, arms in front like Superman. This was on the way TO the pub, mind. Probably would have been pretty if I hadn't screamed as I went, which is what my grandmother said when I fell off the back of a horse: it would have looked good if you hadn't been yelling all the way down. Sorry about the noise folks. Some men came running all "ma'am, ma'am, what happened?" and as usual I had to laugh so that nobody would think I was hurt. The bus driver paused I assume to be sure I was okay and not so that everybody on the bus could stare at me in bewilderment, although I was not feeling particularly okay (hahaha, no worries, I just fell! Don't forget to tip your waiter!) and they did all stare. Thank goodness I managed to keep my head up is the only good thing, because I really don't want to mess up my beautiful, beautiful face. Well, and that I was wearing thick pants that didn't rip, so my knee is bruised but not all bloody. I have a bruised rib this morning, and my hands are still sore, and also my head a bit, although that could be because I was, as I said, on the way to the pub. On the way home I walked on the other side of the street for luck, and it was snowing, and I watched the flakes swirling in the halos of the street lamps even though I really should learn to watch where I'm going.

Man, my desk is a mess. I've got a pile of tissues here, because I've been sneezy mcsneezerson all week. A bunch of pens I have neglected to return to the pen jar. The rings I was wearing last night. A few used toothpicks, which was my clever idea for helping to stop biting my nails, and it works, mostly, but it's maybe a little disgusting. The other day a man sincerely stopped beside my table in a bar and told me I was too much of a lady to be biting my nails. This is probably nicer than what I usually tell people, which is that their IQ drops every time they put their fingers in their mouths. so toothpicks. My favorite book by Josef Skvorecky, who just died. He and Havel off somewhere having a good beer together, I expect. I used to make little stars next to all my favorite lines in books, and then when I'd finish the book meticulously copy all the starred lines into my journal and erase the stars, give the book away. Now I have a house so I keep the books with the stars inside instead, which probably is a little irritating to people who borrow my books, all those Deep Thoughts so generously pointed out for them, but is easier on my poor old lady hands. My Christmas presents for which I have not yet written a thank-you note, and which therefore cannot be put away. A whole bunch of new music that needs to be put into iTunes so I can carry it around in my ears, so you can whisper to just me. My big Christmas gift this year was a washing machine. It is very happy with me and is not constantly making a break for it like the old one. Also it gets the clothes clean. Also the spin cycle actually spins the clothes, which means they get dry faster. It is not as quiet as I had hoped a new washing machine would be but then I'm hardly going to worry about disturbing my neighbors when they make plenty of noise of their own. Like right now. What else is on my desk? The rejection letter from the school that Squire had most wanted to go to. My voter registration form. Some useful things, like my timer and a calendar, but they're almost buried under what doesn't belong. You wouldn't think of me as a messy person, but this desk, this desk is my dirty secret. 

I'll probably clean it off now that I've told you about it. 

I dreamed I had lost the ability to read. The words were on the page but my eyes couldn't focus, or my brain couldn't sort it. I tried to Google to find out what was wrong: had I had a stroke? But I couldn't read any of the information. Absolutely terrible. My dreams lately have been this very literal and tedious expression of my basic fears. Thanks brain. Can't a person get a train ride with a good looking somebody wearing Chanel up in this bed? Torrid>terror.

I am having the same damn parenting struggle I have in other relationships, which is "when should I do something for someone's own good vs. when should I let them learn from their own mistakes". I'll dole out advice at the drop of a question mark, but keeping my mouth shut otherwise is an endless battle. My general feeling is that my job as a parent is to be a safety net while he does all the highwire action; the funambulism of adolescence in particular is best conducted independently. But lately I've found myself up at the anchor point, nudging nudging nudging him just to take a damn step out on the wire. GAH! DO IT! It is not good for me, because I feel less human doing it – having for example learned for myself the lesson that the teenage lesson learned alone is the one learned most thoroughly, it irks me to feel like I'm robbing someone's independence by telling them what they should learn for themselves. On the other hand I was a teacher once, and I know sometimes a steadying presence is needed. So I'm up on the anchor, cajoling, motivating, etc., and then it's like I wake from a dream in which I have become the very person I didn't want to be, the over-controller, and I scootch back down into safety net mode, where I feel better, but then I see my tiny boy way up there on the wire, a little fearful, and does he need to learn for himself that he is brave or shouldn't I just whisper it to him etc.

I'm glad I only had one kid. I frankly don't have the guts for more. Hats off to anybody who does; that's tightrope walking while juggling.

I have plans for pretty much every day from the 25th to January 1st, but I don't feel particularly festive. We decorated some. I'm mostly excited about midnight tonight, when the days officially start getting longer and I can stop worrying that I won't make it through a Czech winter. I'm not saying it's OVER, but every minute more of sunshine counts.

Squire drew a picture of me. It is probably true although I think my eyes are less clear. My eyes are my feature (my one feature) but I don't think they actually glow in the dark. The wrinkles coming up now are mostly the result of gravity, which is interesting. When I was younger the hollows under my eyes were caused by sleeplessness and a hunger that had nothing to do with food; now they are small sacks in which I can carry a pint of tears, the memories of things I've seen, and possibly a small loaf of bread. Poor eye sacks, so laden they will burst at some point.

Also I have jowls, but let's not think about that right now, as there is nothing poetic about the gravity plus weight of that.

I've been quite social lately, which is interesting to me. I've had a bottle of wine in the fridge for about two weeks and haven't had any of it after the first glass, which at first struck me as odd as I was once incapable of keeping an open bottle of anything for more than a day or two. But I've been out out out, dinner party quiz night game night coffee date tour guide whatever. I'm a butterfly is what, a social butterfly. According to Wikipedia I will be dead in a week or maybe a year. 

As is my wont in winter I have been looking at places warmer and varying distances away. Somewhere better than this place, with its promise of snow that never comes true, just bitter cold and wind that freezes my tears to my face. California for Christmas is more expensive than in the summer, ridiculous, so out of the question. Egypt is temptingly hot and reasonably priced, as is Turkey, but being sensible I decided to save the money for the summer and stay inside for the holidays instead. Stacking up the Christmas movies, starting with Die Hard. And I want to work on being still for a minute, and on resolve, and Squire needs to study for the high school entrance exams in January, which promise to be horrifically difficult. 

Sometimes I feel like I would be better cut off from people altogether, but then we are on the leather couch in the corner of the bar, talking about the transformative powers of ballet, and I think: nowhere better than this place, right now.