Over the Bridge Now

I have a standing 8 AM con call on Wednesday mornings. The nanny gets here at 7:30, so it's no big deal. But today, I sat on my call staring out the window at about a half inch of heavy, wet snow on the ground. And it was still coming down in large, fast-falling flakes. Two robins hopped through the snow with little cartoon balloons over their heads that said, "WTF?"

Ok, I lied about the balloons. But boy I felt sorry for those little harbingers of spring. And then I started wondering about the robin in my header. I took that picture two years ago, I believe. Was he one of the guys pouting outside of my window this morning?

According to Learner.org, most robins die within their first year of life. But, if they make it past that first year, they live from 5 to 6 years. So, my guy in the header could still be around.

I was up late working last night. I slid into bed at midnight and then couldn't sleep. So, I got up and did about fifteen minutes of yoga in the dark. Then I sat on my zafu* and said the Jewish evening prayers.  I'm memorizing them slowly, so using each line I am memorizing as a mantra of sorts works well. Serves two purposes if you will. I slept more soundly than I have for weeks.

* I love that word. Zafu! Yes, I own a zabuton too.

I am planning to re-read the first volume of Nin's Diary in Hawaii. On the beach. Me, B, the ocean, Nin, Paris. B and I once got into a fight because he complained about the number of Nin books I had in the living room bookcase. "Can you take some downstairs? Between that and the Henry Miller, it looks like an undergraduate's dorm," was his comment I believe. "Up yours. You've never even read any Nin or Miller," was my response. Heh.

Truly, some of our largest fights have been about art. We cannot even speak of Elvis Costello's All This Useless Beauty without someone sleeping on the couch. It is one of my favorite EC albums. He hates it and says it is EC past his prime. Uh! I got pissed just writing that. He can't stand Tori Amos, who I believe saved my life when I was in my early 20s. He can't stand to listen to as much as two bars of any Ani DiFranco song. And he just doesn't get Midnight Oil or Seal or The Postal Service.

I guess I should be fair and say that I hate Van Morrison, Ricki Lee Jones, Bob Dylan, The English Beat and Salman Rushdie. He recently converted my on Tom Waits by taking me to see him live. I guess the common thread is that we are passionate about art.