Miracles and blessings to all for the coming New Year!

Plans this year involve far less sequins than last year’s gala in Washington. Carrying on what’s become a New Year’s tradition, six of us are together again to toast the evening in Minneapolis. (We’re from New York, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Washington – I think we could have picked somewhere warmer than the Twin Cities!) Plans include a new restaurant in Minneapolis and tickets to see one of my favorite Twin Cities blues musicians. I’m looking forward to it.

Wherever you are,
may smiles be wide,
hearts be content,
and peace be with you.

Watched The Brothers the other night. There are two quotes from the middle of the movie that are still stuck in my head…

“A woman is strength. . .not just the giver of life and all that, but more. Men don’t even know who they are until they know what kind of woman they want.”

“Be fearless. Don’t be timid with love.”

I got two pieces of information last night that absolutely blow my mind.

It just proves that I understand nothing about life or love.

It was gray that day
and raining, but the warm kind.

The sky was a deep midnight blue
with billowing silver thunderheads.

I had gotten white roses
and you asked who they were from,
but I didn't know.
The card was unsigned.

I can almost smell the rain.

She said nothing happened,
but I don't believe her.
There's a grey hollowness
in her face that tells me otherwise.

She doesn't go anywhere
alone now
and is jumpy all the time.

She hasn't said anything
about him since that night
and the last time someone asked,
she started to cry.

So no one talks about it,
and she stays trapped
in a living hell.

I am unable to rescue her
from the darkness that lingers
behind her eyes,
or the nightmares that
invade her sleep
and creep into her waking hours.

A sparkler
floated across
the pool in
a citronella candle
and Chicago
played over and over
on my small white boombox.

We just sat there
reflecting -
toes in the warm water
stretched out against
the wood planks
of the deck.

We had played cb tag
and raced 120
down the highway
into midnight

What if he had
come with us
to take her home?

Would the quiet kid
in the corner
of my CCD class
still be here?

What would he
have done with
his life?

They had been friends
since what seemed like
the very dawn of time -
racing bikes over
homemade jumps;
building Tonka dynasties
in the sandbox.

There were days of
camouflage face paint
and combat in the woods,
wars against foes that
no one but they could see.

Tree forts and camping trips
in the back yard;
football games in the snow;
fishing with sticks
in the creek bottoms

These are the days
they shared
that neither time
nor distance
can fade.

No final papers in the mailbox yet. The anxiety is mounting. I have no idea how I did first semester.

When "Two Years in Preschool" goes Top 40, will you stop being a roadie for the other band?

Mario Frangoulis.

Two words: Grrrrr, baby!

If you haven't heard it, check it out.

I'm hooked. My mother on the other hand said, "If I have to listen to the Greek guy again, I'm going to smash the stereo." I guess she can't appreciate a Greek god singing Italian.

The Northern Lights were spectacular Thursday night. The air was clear and the stars were bright and the night was quiet.

Yesterday, in a rocking chair
in front of the fireplace
I read a baby a book
and took joy in his toddler giggle.
I played tea party
with a little girl with soft blonde ringlets.
And as the sun set
on the fields of snow,
I thought back to the summers
I watched you play baseball.
Sitting in the bleachers,
I wondered what it would be like
to watch our sons play-
perhaps on the same field one day.

Well, after a grueling end of the semester, and a few flight delays, I am back in the Midwest. The snowflakes are dancing lightly on air, there are apple pies in the oven, and the gifts are all wrapped and under the tree. Even the dog looks good asleep in the living room.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and laid there for a few minutes awe stricken at the absolute silence. There is a stillness here that just can't be found in the city.

Here's hoping your holidays are peaceful and filled with warm memories.

Was up half the night last night chasing rats.

The good thing about rats is that they are the perfect example of a supply/demand curve. No more than an hour after I got rid of every ounce of food in the place, they were gone.

Good riddance to them too.

A good time was had by all.

Favorite moment: (well actually two)

1. At the second bar, a gaggle of sleezy drunken guys (who had outlived afterwork happy hour) were trying to hit on Kyoko and Courtney who were watching the band. One of the guys says/slurs, "Why won't you look at us?"
And Kyoko replies, "Cuz you don't impress us."

I nearly wet myself I laughed so hard.

2. Last bar - Our friend Serge is trying to ask Kyoko for her phone number and gets so nervous he starts speaking Russian.

It was classic.

YEAAAAA! I am done.

On my way out now to celebrate at the alumni gamewatch with the boys from Univ. of North Carolina.

Whatever you're having tonight, have another for me.

It's done. To what quality, you ask? Crap, I reply. Total crap.

Too tired to care.

By 7pm tonight my first semester will be over and all five papers will have been turned in. Good riddance.

I'm off to the laundromat for a few hours before class.

Feeling mighty fiesty today. No fourth paper yet, but there will be...

Christmas gift to self: Rat traps

to catch the giant thing that woke me up at 7am.

Message to said thing: I own tennis rackets, four of them. So don't think that you can challege me and come out alive.

To the men of New York City:

Contrary to apparent popular belief, my name is not "Hey Baby".

That okay with you?

Ladies:

Nor am I a commodity to be traded to your single male friends. No, I don't "just gotta" have dinner with your friend Jeff, or Diego, or Clayton.

I know you mean well, but putting me in the storefront window at Barney's would be more subtle.

Thank you.

Note to self: Maybe getting out of here for a little while isn't such a bad idea.

I have had this poem in my head for the past few days and thought I'd share.

"The Invitation" - by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living,
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain,
mine or your own,
without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy,
mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic,
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself;
if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul;
if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty,
even when it's not pretty, every day,
and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure,
yours and mine,
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon, "YES!"

It doesn't interest me where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up,
after the night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone,
and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you,
from the inside,
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

At 4am the frosty white moon over the glassy Hudson looked amazing.

A small jigsaw puzzle piece
he sent to me
no note
or reply address
and smiling
I stood there
knowing exactly what it meant
and how wordless
it filled in all the missing pieces
of my life

Okay, so I don't want to go home for Christmas and I'm feeling guilty as hell. Three weeks is just too long to spend with my family. I love them, but living with them is a different story.

Florida was kibashed as far as I know, so it's three FULL weeks back home. Argh.

Santa - Could I please hitch a ride in your sleigh to a nice isle in the Mediterranean off the coast of Italy? A few days lounging in the sun would be heavenly.

"Just like honey, yea, from the bees" - Van Morrison, Tupelo Honey

Paper 3 is done. I think. No indication on this one either. I'm going to reread it tomorrow before class. The pressure on this one is the fact that the professor is actually read this one, not the TA, and he's the person I would most wish to have as my dissertation sponsor. A little undue stress on this one.

One paper to go. Will she make it?

She was 11,
peddling dope on the corner
for the money to buy a Happy Meal

It was a driveby -
her brother's rival gang
from a neighboring project

She stood for a moment
blinking in disbelief
at the blood on her mittens

then fell
alone
to the ground

another casualty
in an unending urban war
that never made the newspaper

It worked. The Econ rough draft is complete. For now.

The trouble is you can't bullshit your teacher when he's the world's expert in the subject.

Let phase two begin. Re-review the articles, critique the draft, start again perhaps.

Came to campus for a change of pace. So far it is working. Only one section to go and I'll have a rough draft. Wish me luck.

p.s. No strike yet. When I woke up it was incredibly still - I think most of NYC is "working from home" today.

For B.

Saw you last night
some day in the future
reading a book from my
Thistledown series
to your daughter.
She was cuddled under your arm
snuggled in a mound of fluffy white comforter
accented with tiny pink strawberries.

Dusk turned to dark
and yet she sat
unaware

the screen door
to the back porch
tapped at the doorjamb

sometimes to the rhythm
of the song crackling over the radio

Silverblue smoke
curled from her cigarette
framing her silhouette

as the yellow kitchen
took on a darkness
that reflected her own

The curtains hung limp
but for an occasional breeze
that brought new air

into the house that
had suffocated a long time ago

the refrigerator hummed
like any other day,
but it wasn't.

I can't do it. I have been staring at the same five pages for the last four hours. I cannot make this paper come together.

The guts of it are sitting on those five pages, but I can't create the skeleton to hang them on. It just won't come out.

Send help. (Preferrably in the form of Milton Friedman himself.)

The policy brief is now done. And formatted.

Usually you get a gut feeling about whether a paper is of good quality. This one gives me no such indication. I have no idea whether I hit the target.

After staring at my laptop screen for three straight days, I was reminded of something my Junior High music teacher used to say. He said, "Your instrument should become an extention of yourself."

I realized my laptop has become my instrument, and it has indeed become an extension of myself.

Moving on to the final Econ paper now. Just two papers left.

"It was all and it was nothing..." -Josh Joplin group

Heavy barge traffic on the Hudson today.

A quote leaps to mind.

"In dreams we see overselves even more clearly than we see others when awake."

I think it's from A Midsummer Night's Dream, and I'm sure I've remembered it only partially correctly.

The thing about having so much to do these last three weeks of the semester is you basically stay cranked up the entire time. Even your sleep is cranked up.

You know - the kind where there's a steady stream of dreams where you're running to catch something, or late for class, or deconstructing course lectures over and over. You wake up more exhausted than when you went to sleep.

Last night was no exception.

I had a bizarre dream that a friend of mine died and I got her two kids. A little girl and a baby boy with white-blonde hair. I don't even have any friends with two kids, so I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what it was all about.

Now, before you jump to biological clock conclusions, I should say that I don't think I even want to have kids, so that's not it. (In response to your exasperation and the question "What's wrong with you?!" ... I just don't forsee my life being the kind of stable environment that kids need. I want to travel a lot and be able to change careers whenever, and that's just not fair to kids.)

The boy was happy, but a poop-factory. I was trying to devise diapers from towels, ill-prepared for caring for an infant.

As I was trying to analyze I thought, it's one thing to dream about wanting kids, or having kids yourself, but just getting kids? Strange. Very strange.

Then I remembered. The dream book!

Back in our Junior High days, my friend T gave me a book of dream interpretations. I think we were shopping in the Pottery Mall one day and came across it. Since we used to spend hours on the phone analyzing every detail of our teen lives, it was particularly fitting.

So I pulled the dream book off the shelf (yes, I brought it with me to NYC) to see what it had to say. Now, I realize you're probably thinking that these types of books are written so vague that they'll fit practically anything. It's like fortune cookies. But, I'm skeptical. You can look at the subject next to the one you're reading and it just doesn't fit.

I quote:
Baby - This is a very auspicious dream to have, as it symbolizes happiness and success in everything you do. It also indicates that you are exhausted because of the repeated failure of something you are involved in at work, leading to a general feeling of hopelessness.

Policy brief? Anyone, anyone?

truly bizarre.

I steal a few minutes
to unload the words
that have dammed up
over the hours of the day

thoughts I didn't know
were there
until I sat down
with my fingers to the keys

They used to only come
through a pen
on selected days

but now there are too many
to capture that way

they come fast
and fleeting pass me by
before I can pause

that is the beauty
and the tragedy of it

maybe I catch the good ones
maybe they slip away
before I have the chance
to listen

They say my great grandmother
played a mean harmonica

they tell me she was tall
but I only ever knew her
as a tiny woman with white hair

I imagine the stories
her aged hands would tell me
of Ireland
and Liberty in the harbor
if we had a day together

she had in her hand
a small bouquet of violets

when she released them
they floated away down the stream
like Ophelia's had

their innocence lost

images and sound
scrawled against the walls
of your mind

you vandalize yourself

sometimes it's art
and you want the world to see;
sometimes it's ugly
and can't be scrubbed away

Like opening the flood gates
the words surge in
an ocean wave
crushing the shore

a million paper cups
could not contain them

Things look different after 5 a.m.
exhale
at the first gray light of dawn
after holding your breath all night
breathe
the silence is less threatening
with the sunlight streaming in
sleep
dreamless
unafraid of never waking

Thanks to the soothing sounds of Keb Mo' I nearly have a rough draft. (ROUGH is an understatement.) I'm giving up for today.

Brief. It's a "policy brief," not a "policy ramble-on-and-on-without-a-point."

Really, Smithers.

What is it the janitor says? "If it's not Scottish..."

God bless Ben & Jerry.

All of a sudden progress grinds to a halt and the wheels fall off my shaky wagon. Argh.

The quality of this one is thus far abysmal.

At one point during writer's block this afternoon I even wrote my mom's Christmas letter to our relatives. ughh.

And I also wrote this...

"Seussification 1"

Reading, reading on the plane
reading, reading on the train

this is how I spend all my days
whether sunny or a haze

being a student I truly love
it really fits me like a glove

**OUI. Now you know how bad the quality of the paper is, if this is what came out instead.

The smell of pine trees (sold by hunky unshaven guys) on the sidewalk is delicious. As much as I'm not ready for Christmas, I love the scent of holiday pines.

If I hear one more squeal from a 20-something female over Julia Roberts filming on campus, I'm gonna have to smack the person. She and Julia Stiles are apparently doing a movie. The semi trailers are everywhere.

What I want to know is what happened to the 200 Red Cross people they displaced. Fire took a building in the neighborhood and the Red Cross had set up a shelter on campus.

When we were very young
I remember watching you
play baseball
and thinking about
what it would be like
to watch our sons play
perhaps
on the same field one day

Will you still love me
when we're sixty
and I make mashed potatoes
and pot roast for dinner?

black umbrellas
line the sidewalks
hiding eyes
on rainy days

The impending MTA strike is going to suck.

(Metro Transit Authority - controls all public transportation such as buses and the subway. About 7 million people a day ride the subways in NYC, so if they're not running you can imagine the mess.)

Imagine my surprise to see the homeless man from my recent entry "Ohhh Blue Eyes" on the train this morning on my way to class. He tried to sell me a Spanish newspaper.

Dreamt of you this morning
as an old man in Tucson
playing canasta and telling stories,
the lines in your tan skin
deep from laughter

2 papers down! And if I do say so myself, I think #2 wasn't half bad for my first quantitative research paper. Nailed the presentation this morning too. It's good to have them both done.

Only more 3 papers to go. Sixty pages and Semester One will be behind me.

I'm off to Neverland now, for a few hours before my 5 o'clock.

Her poet's heart is fragile.
Countless times
she's run from a room
or looked away
so you couldn't see the feelings
written in capital letters
just behind her eyes.

A friend called tonight and helped me sort out some of the gray that's had me in a funk lately. He reminded me of two important things (as he always does).

1. Life is a series of turning points, and it's how we respond to them that makes us who we are.

2. The only things we truly regret in life are the things we do not do or say.

It's remarkable how easy it is to forget what matters, allow cowardice to set in, and life to pass us by.

Last night I dreamt that I was building a wall. Just me and my trowel, slathering mortar on red brick. If that isn't material for a psych case study, what is? Freud would love it.

It actually made me laugh because it reminded me of an I'll-do-it-myself incident several years ago involving 30 lbs. of QuikCrete and the installation of the family basketball post. I think we had to get rid of both the shovel and the wheelbarrow.

It was one of those times my mother used my middle name and meant it.

Papers 2 & 3 are quantitative and qualitative research papers on the same topic. #2 has become a mind-numbing examination of tax data, and is due - along with a presentation - on Wednesday morning. (The sad thing is I picked the topic. Sigh.)

The wordsmith is out of gas.

How long can one live on Cheerios without getting scurvy, anemia, or start looking like one of those little kids with kwashiorkor? I think I should talk to my friends at General Mills to see if they'd give me a corporate sponsorship.

One down. Four to go.

Freedom is calling.

One of the scariest moments thus far of being a New Yorker occurred tonight on the train. I was on my way downtown to Tony's birthday party and a homeless guy started begging for change on the train. Unfortunately, all I had on me was a twenty and my cell phone.

Usually people will just ask and when you tell them no they won't push it any further. This guy was different. I felt my friends beside me crouch down and slide away.

He tried a couple of times and I told him I didn't have any change on me, but if I did I would help him out. Then something snapped and he started staring at me. He got real close and said, "Ohhh blue eyes..." and some other stuff, completely forgetting about the coins, just staring at me.

I looked away and after about five seconds he just walked away muttering something about my eyes. At that point, practically everyone in the car was looking at me. I just sat there holding my breath, wondering if he was going to turn around.

When we were on the train coming home, Erica said she thought he was going to attack me. That didn't make me feel better.

It was all very strange.

Non multa sed multure - Not quantity but quality. (Latin proverb)

Grad school is all about the Latin. My question is: If so many of our words are based on Latin roots, why isn't Latin still a commonly spoken language?

It's getting dark already. Not exactly the motivation I need to finish my Econ paper. My narrative is starting to take on the tone of Ferris Bueller's teacher.

Anyone? Anyone? ...the cost differential is therefore statistically insignificant...

Yesterday, I bought lettuce at the bodega across the street. I'm now eating it for lunch, and I've noticed that it has a bizarre transparency. We're talking more than translucent. Transparent. Hmmm...

My sister called this afternoon to ask if I would go to Florida with her over Christmas break. Apparently, one of her professional athlete friends has a condo in Fort Myers. (To assuage your horror - he's only 20.)

For five days of sun and sand, I think I could allow myself to be used on this occasion. So long as my pseudo-chaperone duties include quiet time by the ocean, sign me up.

The meeting was good. Just what I needed to get my head back in the game.

However, waiting for the train home, I had another of those all too common incidents where stupid things fly out of my mouth...

Making small talk, I asked my friend if he had his Christmas shopping done yet. And he replied, "Well, I'm Jewish..." and his voice trailed off as though to say "we don't really do that."

Now, were my brain engaged, I would have moved on to a new subject. Instead, being the dork I am, I said, "Wait a minute, don't you do like twelve gifts then?" And he said, "No, it's eight. You have twelve."

duh. This I knew. Menora = eight. (Kwanzaa = seven - just a side reminder to myself should I decide to offend any African Americans later today.)

Note to self: think before speaking.

If I wasn't on my way to a meeting right now, I'd be sitting in my favorite gallery at the Met trying to find a way to clear my head.

Little boys throw snowballs at one another on the sidewalk with a joy their mothers do not know.

Classes were cancelled this afternoon because of the snow. Perhaps someone should have checked her email before trudging all the way up to campus. duh.

Actually, it was so warm out that I decided to walk home. The snowflakes continue to fall gently in the street lights.

If the lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center still takes place tonight, it will be picturesque. It is a perfect evening for ice skating at the Plaza and sipping hot chocolate at Dean & Deluca.

It's snowing.

A dreamy white is cast over everything, and for a few short hours the city moves slowly.

In the darkness,
the steam rises from the grate
like the breath of hell.

He lays there,
a shadow,
forgotten by the passersby.

The earth does not open its great jaws
to swallow him,
ending his misery.

Instead, he is roiled
in a torturous quest for survival,
human respect,
compassion.

The despicable face
of this great city
is not his.

It is the wealth
that foresakes kindness,
forgets to be grateful,
and turns away
from the throngs in need.

Since Sunday, I think I've listened to Coldplay's Parachutes about fifty times. It's been on repeat in my discman or laptop for four days straight.

"What the head makes cloudy, the heart makes very clear." - Don Henley, "New York Minute"

After having not posted for two weeks, I finally have a quiet moment...

Holiday break was totally fabulous. It was the perfect length of time, I got to see everyone, and the food at Thanksgiving was excellent. My grama makes the best turkey stuffing in the world.

Flying back to NYC, I was reflecting on how relative the word "home" becomes in your 20's. I realized I've lived in four places in the past five years. And, even though I've only been here three months, I was pleasantly surprised to feel relief at being back when I landed on Monday. It's like this is exactly where I should be right now.

Since hitting the ground running Monday, I've gotten a whopping total of six hours of sleep as I worked with my Policy Analysis group on a major presentation. We rocked it tonight and came away with an A+. Maybe I'm still a Kindergartener, but that made me giddy.

I love you.

unconditionally.

always have. always will.

I just need you to know that.

If the world had corners, I'd follow you there.