I had to take a day of just staring at the wall after making all these in the space of a week. What was I thinking?! Can’t blame the sugar high before the fact.

I’m off to do some wrapping. With “help”.

Have a relaxed next few days!

Driving home to Brooklyn we came through Times Square. Culture shock on a grand scale.

For months now I’ve been thinking of New York as a demon lover – the one who doesn’t treat you well, who throws you just enough crumbs to keep you stumbling along in the relationship, who endlessly promises and rarely delivers. The one you stay with too long, can’t find a way to leave.

I’ve had a growing suspicion that my relationship with this city may be over. I no longer feel a deep sense of relief when the pilot announces the approach to La Guardia. I crave a garden and limited entertainment options. I’m even nostalgic for driving, for goodness sakes.

Our trip upriver was not merely a vacation, it was as a scientific experiment exploring the city-leaving premise. I didn’t expect a clear answer but within a day I knew. I felt the wide open sense that I could leave New York. Walk away. Like the moment when you look at your husband/lover/partner, the person you see morning and night, who is central to all your days and decisions, and realize that one day, possibly soon, this entire life you’ve constructed together will be gone. This person will be friend or memory. Your paths will part and start new.

But before anything changes there is today. And tomorrow, and tomorrow’s tomorrow. M and I just shacked up; his job isn’t as portable as mine; we may never want to revisit the trauma of moving which is reason enough to stay put. It isn’t clear where we would move to, and it isn’t enough to want to go.

Who knows where this will lead.

Hudson has a full range of holiday decorations – from tasteful white lights to a Happy Birthday Jesus installation, complete with rosary-hung plastic pine tree. All tastes are catered to.

I’ve been thinking about the Day of the Dead; maybe it’s all the leaves fallen from the trees. I’ve never seen the celebrations but I love the sugar skulls and brightly painted skeletons.

In France the day is La Toussaint, All Saint’s Day. When we were in the Pyrenees this Spring we stayed in a house that backed up to the village cemetery. I took pictures of the grave markers, many of which were metal. There was a pile of them stacked against a wall; their “Eternal Regrets” long outlived.

Sad and beautiful.

We had snow yesterday, making for a cozy day of making earrings, sewing in the studio, old movies, and hot tea to stay warm in between bursts of rattling heat in the old radiators.

M was busy with all things computer in the office. We visited each other to deliver peppermint patties and progress reports, and yelled companionably between rooms.

Today the snow has disappeared; just another damp city Monday.

Despite all that warring for independence, we Brits are still here. Oh well. Enjoy the ride.

This is my 100th post! Whodathunkit.

I was woken by the sound of rain during the night, and this morning dawned gray and dreary. M had on the local news and the weatherman promised clear skies by midday, but I didn’t believe him. On a rainy morning it is impossible to believe in sunny afternoons; they are too opposite.

The weather is thankfully immune to my faith in it and this afternoon was blue sky and leafy shadows.

As I’m typing I can hear the imam’s call to prayer from the mosque up the hill. This morning, as I made the bed, I heard church bells. Not opposites, despite how it might seem these days.

The best way to spend a Sunday.

Or any day really.

I was meeting a friend uptown and arrived early so I walked a little along the reservoir in Central Park. There were lots of skinny people in high tech running gear, talking on cell phones, their ipods in their other hands.

The sky and water looked glum, which is how I’ve been feeling. Like I’ve fallen down and lost my way a little. I know that my mood will change, same as the weather; I want it to happen soon.

When I stepped out for lunch yesterday, this is what I saw: