Days, like strands of forgotten party beads, sit in a row gathering dust … I scrawled this remark in shrinking letters wedged onto a scrap of paper one night, thinking about another year slipping by, sewing the seams shut as it passed back into blackness.

Staring at the sky hours before dawn this week, I watched Orion drift sideways, shoulders slanted as he floated above trees and rooftops like a black, empty balloon. A day later Orion watched from beyond the earth as clouds wrung out more than a foot of snow in less than 24 hours. Yesterday Jerry and I crouched with shovels, digging chunks out of the drifts. With numb feet and sweating hands, we worked.

This is like shoveling out from under the damn Ice Age, I told him.

F&%k this, he said. I want a plow …

With a book, wine, and warm flannel, I sat down to read: chasing a wounded and dying plot through the lusty chapters of a romance book is one good reason to toss the pages, fluttering like birds, across the room. Lily lifted her head, then trotted over to sniff.

A new year is coming, and thanks to friends and my family, I have a growing stack of books that won't leave my hands so hastily.