The first time we ever touch a piano is the best it will ever sound. We just move our fingers the way we've seen other people do it, and it's a little too crashing, and every note is an accident, but it still sounds right somehow. It feels like we're really doing something, it feels like our hands are finally worth something. Usually we're little kids when we get near one for the first time, but the nicest thing is, it works even when we're old. The second time we ever touch a piano it doesn't work the same, it feels like the first time was a dream we had that we can't remember properly. I had one of those last night.

On Saturday it became winter. On Friday night we walked back and forth below the expressway and down alongside the park in the middle of the night. There was some fog and some rain, but we weren't cold at all. On Saturday we stood around outside of the radio station for one minute before we gave up and had to pull the gate open and go back inside. After that there was an ice cold hail walk to see J.C. at his bar. A couple of hours later Sam and I were being blown around in a miniature blizzard on an island in the road, running down side streets single file, and unreasonably predicting, "We'll never make it home, it will snow harder and harder and we'll be snowed into this neighborhood all weekend." I like to exaggerate. We sat in a warm window for a while watching the snow fly around outside, but eventually we made it home pretty easily. It's been winter every day since.

Today all I want is to go back to sleep because I have some questions about that last dream, but now isn't the time. I want to take a bath and fall asleep in it, and not wake up until it's dark and confusing and it takes me a while to figure out when and where I am. I just can't get started today, I just want to call out, "Pausebreak," and have an hour or two in which I can feel how still the time is around me. There was more time when I was awake all of my life, but there's always something to complain about. Then there's terrible tomorrow, which is going to make me want to hide under a table, but then I'll never have to do it again, at least for about six months or so. Hooray! For now I just have to get everything done before the sun goes down, or I'll never forgive myself. There can be baths and sleep later.

It's almost time for the Cloisters.