1/4/12 God helps fools and drunks, so don't expect a lot of sympathy

The trains are inexplicably packed, this morning, and I have to remind myself to keep to my rule: no pushing anyone, bigger, smaller, or the same size as you.

Don't push bigger people because they can crush you, smaller people because it's just not nice, and people the same size because you never know who's carrying a knife.

The overcrowded train vomits its load of commuters into the scrum of the already at-capacity platform, and one man hollers to the rest of us, slurring his words, asking how to get to the E train.

When no one answers (mostly because a. he's drunk and b. the E train doesn't come to this station) he berates us, yelling, "Aw, nobody can help me?"

1/3/12 It's really cold, but only for some.

The night descends and the wind blows stinging cold against my cheeks. A woman and her daughter, dressed for the cold in bubble jackets and boots, and their wolfish, proud-tailed dog wander down the sidewalk ahead of me, and I listen as they urge the animal on.

"Come on, Charlie," says the woman, tugging at the leash, "or she'll get cold and tired."

"I'm not cold!" says the girl, and then begins to sing happily, "I'm not cold cold cold cold, I could stay out here all night!"

1/2/12 Shopping with the Visigoths

We took some stuff back to the stores today, going into Manhattan and braving the hordes that, contrary to our expectations, initially seemed to have stayed home. We only had a few things that didn't fit which we exchanged for the correct sizes at their respective stores, and we accomplished our early missions easily and quickly.

Until we arrived... at Macy's, where the hordes had been all along, tearing apart the displays of marked down shoes, and leaving the racks of discounted (up to 40%!) sweaters and ladies separates in tattered disarray.

When we left Brooklyn this morning, the sun was shining on a beautiful, crystal blue Monday, and by the time we got back home from our descent into the maelstrom, it was dark, and cold, and a desolate wind blew through our broken, disillusioned souls.

1/1/12 A new kind of new year

Last night, after a lovely dinner with our friend Kevin, instead of going out to an overpriced, overcrowded party, Katie and I stayed home to drink strawberry champagne and watch the ball drop on television.

At midnight, we climbed to the roof with champagne flutes and listened to the city celebrate. We kissed in the mild night while fireworks exploded at all four points of the compass.

This morning, we woke, completely refreshed and un-hungover, without the regrets and sense of shame that accompanied New Year's Eves of the past.

11/28/11 new cat

Is it too soon to be overjoyed? Katie says, her hand buried in a bellyful of the softest fur either of us has ever felt, "I feel like were dancing on Honey's grave."

Every time I believe I've reached my capacity, for love or happiness or whatever, I am blown wide open by yet another thing that proves to me I have no idea how much I can feel, love, enjoy, experience. A long haired calico cat with a white belly and sweet green eyes purrs between us as we lie on the bed, her back pushed up against my leg, one pink-padded paw draped over Katie's leg, and my heart feels fit to burst.

11/22/11 Rrrrargh

Work has been brutal, the last week. The accumulated karma of 15 years of slacking coming home to roost.

It feels like something inside me has been beaten - not defeated, but actually beaten, tenderized. A part of me has given up, at least for now, but even so, I can feel it lurking, waiting to rise back up and assert its stupid, foolish dominance.

11/15/11 Allocating your time

"I don't believe that you spend 7o% of your time on my work," I read in her email, and the anxiety which I'd been staving off for the past few hours comes crashing back. My head seems to swell up like a balloon full of blood and I wonder if this is what it feels like right before a person has a stroke.

This is what comes of working in industries where you have no native talent or interest, and a strange resolve kindles in me.

I am going to find a job in a place that roughly corresponds to what I actually care about.