Golly, I have no idea how to write in this thing.

The snow was all gone by yesterday morning. That's how long it takes. The more snow there is, the more quiet it is. On the snowiest day the only thing I heard was kids laughing, once in a while. That's what snow sounds like, quiet some of the time and like kids laughing the rest of it. Yesterday I heard a dog bark and it startled me. I never hear dogs barking. There used to be a dog next door, but it was tiny and its barks were more like sharp, high-pitched, rasping coughs. I didn't like that, it sounded like trouble. The bark I heard yesterday sounded like fun. Anyway, the tiny dog next door was replaced by a tiny boy, a baby right on the verge of toddler. Sometimes I hear him crying on his way in or out, but more often he makes happy noise. He laughs a lot. I think he's laughing in Italian.

Everything seems more important lately. I'm more careful of what I say, and to whom. I just want to be sure of more things, more of the time. I don't want to waste anything. My idea of who I am and how I feel changes too far and too fast. I'm like a book whose pages are flipped instead of turned. I want to feel settled and quiet and slow. I'm teaching myself how.

It's going to get so cold tonight. I'm going to drink a thousand cups of tea and do the crossword. I'm going to wear my newish gloves and hide in Brooklyn for a while. I know, fairly certainly, that at some point I'll find myself standing outside, waiting for a car door to be unlocked, jumping up and down and saying, "I'm cold, I'm cold, I'm cold!" I'm predicting the future and I haven't seen my horoscope in weeks! I'm giving myself two stars. I won't need any more than that.

I can't tell if this is a waste or not.