Thirty-nine

I started this birthday out on Columbia Road,  in shorts and t-shirt in the pitch black, 2 miles into a 3.5-mile run, listening to Allison Krauss and Union Station sing "Forget About It."

Then I came home and took out the trash.

I grabbed a Sam Adams Cream Stout from the fridge.

I sat down at my piano and practiced music for "Songs For A New World" rehearsal later tonight; the one that needed the most work was a piece called "She Cries."

Trying not to read too much into the depressing subject matter of these early-morning pursuits.   Or that I'm starting out the year staying up so f@#$ing late.

Again.

Oh well.  Looking forward to waking up to some warm sunshine.

Update:


Y'all.... I had a fabulous birthday.  The co-workers bought flowers and cupcakes.  The family all wrote.  The (100 or so) Facebook friends weighed in;  others texted, called, and one sent this awesome link to an NPR feature on the Goldberg Variations.  MSF sent jewelry.  At rehearsal, my musician friends sang en masse; Claudia and Cousin J sang solo on my voicemail;  my sister called with the nephews so Henry could sing his Power Rangers song and Oliver could say "Aunt Karin" for the first time in my life.

Meanwhile. the weather was the first day of summer instead of the second of spring; I biked the 7 miles home from Davis Square at midnight in nothing but running shorts and a cardigan.  Earlier, I clocked a 4-mile run in a sunny breeze;  then when crossing the Mass Ave bridge on my way to a 7 p.m. rehearsal, got to view this sunset over the Charles basin:

All good.  All turning my frown upside-down.  Thanks, all.

Tower in winter (II)

Did I tell y'all that I gave up chocolate for January?

(And that so far I've been very, very good about that?)

Can you understand how much I regret this resolution today, after staying up way too late watching Season 1 of Downton Abbey and waking up to a thundering storm that blew my umbrella inside out on the way to the bus (and, yes, I'm one of those people who'd really rather have it be 10 inches of snow than an inch of rain) and wishing I could drink my coffee faster and enjoying the last 4 hours looking out onto a slate canvas of nothingness, listening to the creak of the tuned mass damper as the wind pushes this building in circles and diagonals and squares.

Chaotic productivity

Oh January, thank you.  For a relative change, I've had a personally productive week:

1)  Christmas letters DONE in record post-holiday time.  (Boo-yah!)

2)  Christmas thank you notes on schedule to be DONE tonight.  (Yes!)

3)  Church council Secretary minutes and materials from the 24 council and 9 voters meetings between May 2009 to May 2011 indexed, scanned, bound, and sent to appropriate parties.  (Only 7 months behind schedule, but....DONE!)

4)  Quest to devote 90 minutes per day to decreasing the height of the 20-foot pile o' backfiling on the counter behind my desk .....so far, on track, and today seems possible.   (And it feels GOOD.)

5) Run 100 miles in January?  Already 10-on-the-treadmill-in.  (At 8-minute-mile pace, no less, which feels FANTASTIC.)

Of course, perfection is still elusive.... In the midst of typing the above list, after another night of near-complete insomnia, a colleague informs me that between he and me, sometime in the past 6 weeks, we misplaced a folder of original client-signed paperwork required to open a new account.  Meaning between now and tomorrow one of us have to find it.   It could be in that 20-foot pile o' backfiling. It could be in one of the 13,000 other folders in my possession in this office. One of us could have slipped it into the recycling bin during the first week in December.

Who knows.  (Shudder.)  I now have to devote my afternoon's productivity (including my 90 minutes of planned filing) to finding this folder.

I'm reminded of an article I came across last night at the gym, in the October issue of Vogue magazine:  "Chaos Theory:  Forgetful and prone to distraction, Andrea Cooper set out to uncover the cause of her mental mayhem and found a large number of women unwittingly suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder."

In short:  Ms. Cooper consulted doctors and took tests after her daughter had been diagnosed and medicated for ADHD, thinking that since it could be a genetic condition, it might be her genes causing it;  a positive diagnosis might provide answers to explain some of her more scattered habits.  But in the end the doctors didn't find her behavior pervasive enough to fit the definition and, as she admitted, "I must confess I was slightly disappointed that I couldn't attribute my household piles to a medical condition."

Yes. I too, today, wish I had a magic drug that would make that missing folder reappear ... or perhaps transport me back 6 weeks to the point before it might have been lost.

A little metta with my coffee...

If I were to write here what I was planning to write --

-- which was that at 12:45 this morning I was running 8-minute miles through Southie, in shorts and baseball cap, through the most unlikely of hurricane-strength downpours (never a sentence I'd expect to write on the first day of winter in Boston) and how even though I was drenched, I was invigorated, and how even running uphill into the rain and headwind and with water squishing in the lining of my shoes from the massive puddles felt good in that "I'm running through a metaphor about perseverance and overcoming adverse conditions and enjoying it" kind of way --

-- you'd probably correctly guess that I did not sleep enough last night, that I felt restless and wired from too many Christmas cookies and joy over having (amazingly, before the day itself!) completing my Christmas letter, that I stayed up way later than I should have and woke up pretty out-of-sorts.

Arriving in the office, though, I found a "Seasons Greetings" e-mail from my only known friend who embraces Buddhism in a real and comprehensive way-- a former co-worker from Minnesota, go figure.  Here were his greetings. 

Metta

"Monks, whatever kinds of worldly merit there are, all are not worth one sixteenth part of the heart-deliverance of loving-friendliness; in shining and beaming and radiance the heart-deliverance of loving-friendliness far excels them.

Just as whatever light there is of stars, all is not worth one sixteenth part of the moon's light; in shining and beaming and radiance the moon's light far excels it;

and just as in the last month of the Rains, in the Autumn when the heavens clear, the sun as he climbs the heavens drives all darkness from the sky with his shining and beaming and radiating;

and just as, when night turning to dawn, the Morning Star is shining and beaming and radiating;

so too, whatever kinds of worldly merit there are, all are not worth one sixteenth part of the heart-deliverance of loving-friendliness; in shining and beaming and radiance the heart-deliverance of loving-friendliness far excels them."

Buddha

Wishing you a metta, metta christmas and a metta new year...

In case you've not heard of the term metta, it has a lengthy definition, in part:  "a multi-significant term meaning loving-kindness, friendliness, goodwill, benevolence, fellowship, amity, concord, inoffensiveness and non-violence ...  the strong wish for the welfare and happiness of others ...  altruistic attitude of love and friendliness as distinguished from mere amiability based on self-interest." 

Richard's sentiments brought down my heart rate and shored up my focus for this last, hectic day before the holiday -- for which I'm grateful -- and reminded me of the many multi-significant and lovely people in my life I should also be grateful for.

Peace, Generosity

I know I've never said this before ... but damn, I did not sleep well last night. Yesterday was busy at the office and I was tense. I was thusly still tense while online Christmas shopping before leaving the office, and a vigorous run-and-row at the gym, a hot bath while downing a 3-shot bourbon cocktail, and a bowl of reheated Thanksgiving turkey soup did not take the edge off. Nor did a 90-minute chat with a (very) groggy MSF followed by perusing the The New Yorker (complete Nov. 7 edition), nor did playing Tetris on Facebook for 45 minutes before polishing the last 2 servings from a box of Kashi Go Lean and re-delving (for the third time) into Fred Emery's Watergate.  (Yeah, I agree: conspiracy and breakfast cereal at 3:30 a.m. do not exactly inspire a mind to shut down.) Woke up hard at 6:45 out of a dream where I was biking as fast as I could through the Back Bay, along the brick sidewalks of Marlborough Street, and I still could not catch the insouciant man jogging in front of me, who I know I was meant to catch, needed to catch. And thusly could not get back to sleep and could not get out of bed and didn't know how I was possibly going to manage the latter, ever, body unwilling and brain frustrated. It wasn't until I recalled how some 6 weeks ago I had similar dread of the uncertainty around me and only recovered from that dread when realizing that I have Patience Judgment Family Friends Health and my world does not really suck ass. That still holds true. And I realized I could remind myself in this season (and any time, really), that when I want to mire in a self-centered wallow I can instead tell myself to aspire to a Peace Within and a Generosity to Others ... to let go of little annoyances, to realize the ones I think aren't so little are minuscule in the grand scheme, that peace indeed can be a chosen state of mind, and that anything I can do to brighten someone else's day is an anything worth doing.

So, eventually, I got up. (I'll let you know how the rest of the day goes.)

Actions speak

Got caught up last night getting my hair cut and going for a run and making banana bread and washing my kitchen floor.  Which kept me up later than I probably should have stayed up.  Which meant I was a tad tired waking up this morning.  Which is not abnormal for me.

What is abnormal is getting to the office, taking off the commuter-girl tennis shoes I wore to bike in with, and zipping up these knee-length black boots

then walking the length of my office to make a cup of coffee and pick up something from the file room before realizing that something felt a bit ... off... then realizing I had zipped the boots onto the wrong legs

In my defense, this is how they look from above, on the wrong feet. 

Not so obvious, no?

Still.  It probably should have been, sooner than I deduced.

Oh, sleep.  You necessary evil.

Thanks-Essay 4: To Not Griping

Got into work quite late today ... the result of staying up very late.  As in sun-coming-up late and not because I wanted to be.   As in:  for the first time in months being up with heart-racing insomnia that didn't abate with a hot bath, with rereading transcripts of past fond chats with MSF, with the eating of a plate of cold turkey breast at 4:30, or even pulling out EB White's "One Man's Meat" for folksy storytelling distraction.

I'm blaming Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, the account of a Mt. Everest expedition featuring loads of high-altitude frostbite, delusions, and death.  I love the book and have already read it 3 times -- and for reasons unknown, last night was the night it decided to disturb the living shit out of me. 

It took pulling the laptop into bed, queuing up the cartoon Ratatouille, and letting the happy rat chef make some splendid soup before my brain shut off and heartbeat relaxed and I drifted off at about 6....only to wake myself up with a dream about riding bike across an f#$%ing ice bridge while looking down at an endless crevasse in either direction.

Oy. Hope the pleasant dreams MSF wished me before we said goodnight at least came true for him.

Not to gripe, though.  Last night I guess I could have been at Wal-Mart, getting pepper-sprayed by a fellow video-game shopper.

It's in this context -- a bit sleep-deprived, a bit sated from the food and fellowship of yesterday, a bit daunted with the to-do list that awaits these last November days -- that I was grateful to see David Brooks' Times column today editorializing on his project, "The Life Reports".  His request:

"If you are over 70, I’d like to ask for a gift. I’d like you to write a brief report on your life so far, an evaluation of what you did well, of what you did not so well and what you learned along the way. You can write this as a brief essay or divide your life into categories — career, family, faith, community, and self-knowledge — and give yourself a grade in each area.

Of course I read most of these essays this morning, here at work in our sparsely-populated office after having death dreams and not sleeping... and promptly started crying.  But even if you had productive slumber and are reading this blog entry in your pajams with coffee and curled up in front of a fir e... I highly suggest them for your post-Thanksgiving glad-you're-not-out-shopping-instead reflection.

Weekend forecast

Oh.

The
weather looks crappy.

The
(purported) 20-mile run
(in crappy weather)
daunting.

(Scroll down to see....)

And
I've a floor to scrub before I sleep.

But
I've got bag of fall vegetables.

And
a pound of fresh coffee beans.

And
clean sheets.

And
a guest from the west coast
arriving tomorrow,
same time as the sun
(we won't see anyway).

Bring it on.

And ... back.

 So.  I don't have many tales from Minnesota made for long telling.

Not that nothing happened. There was a family wedding and family singing and family walk-abouts and family debriefings, and toddler tantrums offset with unbearable cutenesses and Dr. Seuss, and training runs of 8, 6 and 4 miles, and approximately one ton of peanut butter consumed, as well as gallons of beer drank on patios and lawns under temperate skies and, blissfully, 3 out of 4 really satisfying nights of sleep.

Of course, this will not be one of them. I dozed for most of my airplane ride this evening, waking up only to notice a colorful sky to my left (see below) and my body thinks it's only 1:09 instead of an hour later. Not that either of these hours are particularly early.

Sunset over Lake Huron

I've convinced myself that adrenaline (of needing to dig through a full e-mail inbox and quarter-end reporting awaiting at the office) will carry through both a Wednesday acting suspiciously like a Monday and the feeling I just negated all my good relaxation and fatigue-busting.

Let's hope.

Mild deception

"You look great!" was the first thing the nutritionist said at my appointment this morning, and I realized that a lime green dress against tan shoulders and a little yoga go a long way to hiding the fact that last night at 1:30 I was sitting cross-legged on my bed, hunched over a laptop, eating cheese sticks and Craisins and not in the least trying to sleep and not having an excuse not to, except for that craving I get most nights at 11 for an intangible that isn't food, although I like to throw food at it, which is just silly because Craisins (or cinnamon sugar by the spoonful or microwave popcorn) don't cure exhaustion or an undisciplined habit which, if I admitted it, only makes the craving worse because a tired girl who is forever tired might come off as a desperate girl who doesn't (know how to) make choices to make her more appealing, more chillaxing proactive, more forgiving, more focused, or more truly wanting to end it.

Weird groove

In this weird groove lately
(so disagreeable in this solstice).

Wouldn't call it a crisis, or depression
or even unhappiness.

Might call it unmotivation
(yes, a made-up word).

It's how thoroughly I don't care
if I actually do the things I've set myself up to do.

It's about everything, just about,
starting with getting out of bed in the morning.

Followed by blogging, then running,
then taking care of a sore throat
as to not lose my voice again
(which I did, anyway),
then working, then choring,
then socializing, then paying bills,
then going to bed at night.

These all seem difficult, somehow,
(these things that are good for me).

These are not difficult.
My life is not difficult.

Maybe it's this fun with (lack of) sleep thing?

But, I'm attending at class at the MGH Benson-Henry Institute
to try something called "mind-body" meditation
so I can go to sleep better at night
and stop finding simple things difficult.

(Turn off the brain.
Calm the thoughts.
Find the focus.
Find the positive.)

Class started last Wednesday,
meets again this Wednesday.
Haven't yet done any of the homework,
and I feel unconcerned about this,
but don't like me for it.

Which is the dichotomy keeping me up tonight:
nonchalance and guilt and how they
seamlessly coexist.

And no, it isn't lost on me
that I'm focusing on this dichotomy
instead of taking care of what's causing it
and I know it.

Which goes back to why
this groove is weirder than I enjoy.

Streets with names

I've been on my best behavior lately,

no longer losing my shit

at remembering that 

I've lost C-2 to the ether.

What sucks, though,  

is having rehearsal 

in his old hood

four days a week.

I'm cursed with this problem, generally,

upon losing lovers or friends

and being the one

left behind in that

the streets they used to drive

are still there

with the same names

and I'm still driving them.

A (Sort-of) Piano of One's Own

I've known 

how to play piano 

for 

32 years.

I've never
played a piano
that
belongs to me.

Today 

I played a piano 

that belongs to me 

because 

I bought one*

yesterday.

Finally.

For it's cherry-popping occasion,

I played 

Rhapsody in G Minor (Op. 79 No. 2) by Brahms .... 

straight through,

standing 

because it was 12:15 a.m. 

(and too late to figure how 

to adjust the stand height),

wearing headphones 

because it was 12:15 a.m.

(and I've got an upstairs neighbor),

playing the Brahms Rhapsody

because it's the only song on earth 

I play well

from memory.

It may be just 

a Korg digital keyboard 

(with headphones)

that has to be played standing up 

(for the time being),

but nonetheless 

(and I'm not really 

a materialistic person

I swear),

I'm pretty pumped.

(*Next up:  

a phone 

that takes better pictures 

than this one.)

Day 2 of 30:  6:29 miles

April Total:  6.29

2011 Total:   160.28

A small, good thing

A couple days ago I happened to pull out a grad school relic: Where I'm Calling From, a retrospective of short stories by Raymond Carver.

One of the more affecting pieces in the collection concerns a small child on his birthday, hit by a car on the way to school, eventually dying of his injuries.  His parents, numb and grieving, end up harrassed by the baker of their child's birthday cake who, unaware of what has happened, calls the parents repeatedly to demand they pick up the cake and pay him for it.  In the end they head to the baker's store at 3:00 one morning for a confrontation -- only to have him apologize, empathize, and invite them in.

"You probably need to eat something," the baker said. "I hope you'll eat some of my hot rolls. You have to eat and keep going. Eating is a small, good thing in a time like this," he said."

I've not forgotten that line since first reading it years ago -- a small, good thing.  That something you didn't know you needed until it was offered, which is when you realized you couldn't have done without it.

So I have been going on the last week because of C-2's unexpected departure.  Overcome by a melancholy in some ways earned yet, I know, belabored beyond its importance.  I didn't know how to be when faced by it so I just got angry.  Angry at losing him.  Angrier, perhaps, to realize I never had him.  Anguished in a way that is perhaps typical of a spurned woman who thinks she meant more to a man than she did.

And then, in a way I couldn't have otherwise fathomed, last night ended up being a small, good thing.

In which I (why? couldn't help myself?) wrote C-2 an e-mail before leaving work to see if he had left town yet.  To which he replied he was still packing and that yes, I should come over and bring bubble wrap for his television.  And how after a long rehearsal and some driving about, I finally got to his apartment with the bubble wrap at 11:56 p.m., just in time to ring in my birthday with a shot of Jameson and a Smithwicks and a couple other friends, all of us sitting on packing boxes. To find out he was planning to start driving away as soon as we filled the truck, so we filled the truck fast.  To see him in his own space, to help haul his bike (he has a bike?!) and chess set and boxspring and GRE prep books and hear about the woman he was headed to be with, and to feel like even after a hundred conversations in the last 2 years, how it was this night, the last night, that I got a far better view of him the person.

It was 3:48 a.m. when we did our last shot of Jameson and shut the truck door.  We 3 women stood on the street.  C-2 came over and hugged his first (and closest) friend, hugged his second friend, then came to me, kissed me on the lips and we hugged, also as friends.  A moment later, standing next to my car, I watched him cruise by on his way to the turnpike and just like that, be gone for good.

And now it's 5:26. I drove home with enough energy to want to sit up and write these thoughts.   I'll sleep only a few hours now but, like after previous rendezvous with C-2, I know I'll wake up at 8, invigorated.

Because, yes, it's my birthday.

Because I remembered why C-2 and I got to be friends in the first place and how that's a shining relief.

Because I never imagined in these last weeks of frustration that I'd be standing there at dawn on Holland Street as his last Boston kiss and his last Boston wave, knowing full well I've got nothing more needing crying about, if I can just keep myself from doing so.

Won't-power

Often
when I'm awake this late
(on DST spring-ahead night, no less)
even when my eyes squint
from chronic fatigue
and I'm running a road race
in a 7.5 hours
(not counting
how early
I must get up
for travel and stretching
and pre-race caffeine),

I have to wonder
how much of this
insomnia issue
is lack of willpower?

As in,
how hard is it
to remember that
sleeping is
in my best interest
and if I
really wanted to try,
I'd just
shut my eyes?

I don't know. 
It's a mystery.

Day 13 of 31: 5.6 miles

March Total: 18.05

2011 Total: 121.11

You can say that again

C-2 and I are only very occasionally in touch since he moved more or less out of state in December.  He said hi at Christmas.  I wrote him late one night mid-January, in beery nostalgia.  Otherwise we're silent.

As has been discussed in this space ad nauseum, this is not a bad thing.  He and I are known to have highly above-average makeout sessions on occasion. Beyond that he is a badly-behaving distraction who, when given the excuse, I yearn for fruitlessly.  I know he doesn't want to (or can't) give me what I know I want even in a friendship, much less anything more.  Haven't seen him since October.

Hm.  But a few days ago, I was moved to include him on the e-mail invite to my upcoming birthday drinks outing. Within minutes:

C2:  Oh crap, I'll be back in (out-of-state city) by then. But I'm here for a week...Foley's at some point?

Within minutes:

Karin:  But of course.

Bad girl. (Slaps hand.)

Based on our track record of proclaiming we will be together and not being together, I find it unlikely this purported meeting will happen, which is (maybe / maybe not) why I so readily replied.  Although I probably have to admit I'd like it to happen.

So last night I was (surprise!) up very, very late, working on a volunteer editing job for church.  Lo, at 2:53 a.m. (surprise!):

C-2: mornin
K:  indeed
C-2: :)  how r ya
K:  I'm cool. I got caught up in a project. What you up to?
C-2:  just got home
K: Good night? (as in, did you have a good one?)
C-2:  one
C-2:  sec
K:  O
K:  K
C-2:  :)

Eighteen minutes pass.

C-2:  ok, back now
K:  Cool.  I think I have about 5 minutes left in me.
C-2:  yeah, probably true with me too.  Shall we just say g'night?
K:  Sure.
C-2:  less fun than we used to be  :)
K:   Hey, I'm up. That's got to be worth something.
C-2:  it's something

Ain't that the truth.

Needs work

I just came from the doctor.

(Follow-up for my physical in December. A follow-up because I was so tardy for the first appointment the nurse practitioner could only complete half the tests and requested a second appointment. Yes, it does take me 3 months to schedule follow-ups for appointments that require follow-ups because I was tardy.  Welcome to my life.)

I'm glad my NP is a listener and a recommender.  Based on our discussion today, she gave me five (count 'em) referrals for specialists:

1) Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist -- for periodic, chronic tinnitus.

2) Dermatologist -- for the whatever-you-call-it on my collarbone that flares red when my sports bra chafes it.

3) Sleep Study -- to rule out apnea as a source of my fatigue.

4) Nutritionist -- to discuss my recent weight gain and if it has to do with eating the wrong things for all the wrong reasons. (Search this blog for peanut butter, Reeses Pieces, cereal, conversation hearts, attempts and failures to curb gratuitous consumption despite wanting to .... )

5) The Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine  -- for a consultation,  again regarding the weight gain and insomnia, to see if I want to get involved in a program that "reduces the impact of stress through a variety of research driven skill-buildling exercises to improve medical symptoms, mood and well-being" and whose 6 core components include "relaxation response, social support, physical activity, nutrition, recuperative sleep and cognitive restructuring to increase positive emotions and behaviors."

Leaving, I commented to the NP that I'd be doing nothing but going to doctors over the next couple months (while silently thanking my employer for affordable, comprehensive health insurance that covers almost all of it). 

She replied that sometimes it is beneficial to health just to get one's mind off all the things they're convinced are wrong with them ...

Amen to that.  Now only if she could cure procrastination. 

Day 3 of 31: 2.05

March Total: 4.55

2011 Total: 107.61

Good poem (sung)

Sleep

The evening hangs beneath the moon
A silver thread on darkened dune
With closing eyes and resting head
I know that sleep is coming soon

Upon my pillow, safe in bed,
A thousand pictures fill my head,
I cannot sleep, my minds aflight,
And yet my limbs seem made of lead

If there are noises in the night,
A frightening shadow, flickering light…
Then I surrender unto sleep,
Where clouds of dream give second sight.

What dreams may come, both dark and deep
Of flying wings and soaring leap
As I surrender unto sleep
As I surrender unto sleep.

-- Charles Anthony Silvestri

Day 4 of 28:  4.65 miles

February Total:  8.4

2011 Total: 58.41

(Thanks for the) cleaning help

So after great delay #3, Sunday Night Man and I have Date #4. 

As in a real, live date on a Saturday night.

In light of our respective economies, we'll stay in.  I'll cook a chicken dinner to which he will contribute a vegetable.  We'll assemble at my place, after 2 dates at his.

Can I mention again that I'm cooking?  Can I also mention that he graduated from culinary school this summer and now works as a cook for a living?  And that he's the 28th boy I've dated who is allergic to cats, requiring an Allegra intervention?

So.  Last night while making my own dinner and otherwise puttering about, with this knowledge in hand, I had a dual revelation similar to when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Life and their eyes were opened to their nakedness:

1) The kitchen I'm inviting an opinionated culinary guru into is a grimy, crumby, greasy, disorganized clutterfest with dull knives and an empty salad spinner in the fridge only because I can't find the cupboard space for it.

2) Cat hair and tracked-out litter is on the couch, the windowsills, the rug, the floor and the tops of picture frames.  It's (bleeping) everywhere.

And I was not necessarily ashamed.   But I was spurred to stay up until 2:45 a.m. in a first swipe at restoring order.

Which reminded me of one of life's greatest unassailable truths:  the desire to not gross out a date has and probably always will be my most powerful incentive to clean.

(Whatever it takes, eh?)

Essential

"A snow emergency has been declared in the city of Boston"

Forecasters issued a blizzard warning for the east coast of the state ... effective from 2 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday. They warned of a potentially dangerous combination of northeast winds of 20 to 30 miles per hour, with gusts up to 45, and snow falling at 2 to 3 inches per hour. 

Parking ban will go into effect. 

Boston Public Schools will be closed.

Non-essential employees are directed to stay home.

Businesses are asked to consider having employees work from home, particularly as the heaviest snowfall is expected during the morning commute.

Oh, to be non-essential.

Mostly because I'm just sitting here, looking into the black, waiting for 2 a.m. and for the snow to start, as if I didn't have to go to work not too many hours from now, half-hoping the blizzard will be wicked enough to intimidate the #9 bus drivers, perhaps, but knowing that unlikely, and that if I hadn't scheduled a conference call for 11 a.m. it wouldn't possibly have mattered if I were to stay cozy under the covers with my coffee and my WBUR and my cats until maybe the after noon, since our office manager decreed that my co-workers and I could "use our best judgment" on whether or not or when we came in, and I know what my best judgment would be if my other judgment hadn't already made decisions that made it essential for me to sway through yet another blizzard in the tallest building in Boston.

Day 11 of 31: 1.96

January Total: 22.36