Once more this morning he wakes up and cuddles me, and I cuddle back for aboout half a minute before I try to get back to sleep. This morning for once he obliges me; that was 8 o'clock and now it's ten. A cappucino at the cafe down the street from our new house (!) at four in the afternoon yesterday left me wired until far past my usual bedtime. Still: asleep at 12:30 still gives me nine and a half hours last night. And that's, I think, a little under the mean since I've been here.

And yet: he's gone through an inhaler for the cough, nasal spray for the nose, antibiotics for the ear infection, sudafed for the stuffy head (plus andrographis, propolis and massive infusions of mint tea just in case) and I haven't gotten sick yet. I've been having the dreams I have when I'm really exhausted, dreams where I'm trying to go to sleep in my dream, and when he wakes me at eight it is almost painful. The upside of being unemployed is that I can indulge my body in this for now - if I get the job I want (and the interview went great, but I won't know till next week), I'll be making a forty-minute commute to be at work by 7:30. That is the opposite of sleeping in.

Update! We (almost definitely, pending reference checks that shouldn't be anything but spectacular) got the apartment. I'm interviewing for the job tomorrow.

And it's a blazing 20 degrees out! Let's go swimming!

Have found both an apartment I love and a job I am excited about. Have not yet acquired either, but applications are out. Cross your fingers for me.

The dreamworld is deep these days. Don't know if it's his arms around me or the snow-lit night, maybe that I've not managed a good sit since I left the Zen Center. Whatever the reason, I am submerged soon as I close my eyes these nights, big epic dreams that merely pause for the getting-to-know-each-other-again half-awake shufflings of bodies and the incipient-UTI midnight bathroom break. Fewer nightmares, proportionately, but those few are as saturated as the rest. The boy has been sick, to greater and lesser degrees, since we got back; I have been sleeping in dreadfully and that for the fact that I'm not sick as well. That and the juicer.

His dad had a juicer lying around and now we have it. We went through a 25 pound bag of carrots in less than a week. My current favorite is tomato-celery-beet-carrot-spinach-ginger juice. There are, miraculously, local (hydroponic) tomatoes, and it turns out that juice is the best way to use a crappy winter tomato. We both agree that we feel a little high after drinking 16 oz. of the stuff. Apple-cranberry-blueberry is good too.

It's still cold out.

New Year's Realizations:

1. I can be really, really lazy. This applies to the physical (oh no, you guys go hiking, I'm gonna lie here), the creative (signing up for a series of pottery classes and going to only the first three, planning projects in my head that never get done), the emotional (breaking up with someone because they make me work hard at being honest), and the general (putting the lid only halfway back on the spice jar, washing the dishes but not actually getting them clean).

2. I can be really unreasonably driven. This also applies to the physical (staying on the swim team for a year after I hated it, kickboxing until I literally passed out), but mostly to the general (I didn't miss a single 5 AM zazen period all summer, I slogged an hour through three feet of snow to a volunteer job in Philly one winter, I worked double split shifts for a week when the manager walked out on the cafe I worked at).

3. I can be very dishonest. From little peacekeeping fibs and omissions (not reminding grandma that I was present for the story she's telling me) to pretty serious deceptions (telling him nothing happened between us).

4. I am afraid of making mistakes. This prevents me from trying new things or from following through on them (climbing, skiing, singing, painting), and currently is preventing me from deciding what I want to do with my life. Or actually what I want at all. I am hesitant to state desires and preferences in general, from movies and groceries to careers.

5. I want to eat meat again. (Take that, number four!)

6. Anything is possible. Still, change takes time.

Today the wind off the lake sent the temperature under 0 degrees. Then under -10, down to -14. By now it's back up to a mere -9. All the more reason to drink tea, make soup, and snuggle. 'Cause goddamn, that's cold.

He wakes me at dawn. Look.
Out the window: snow.

The room full
with the mottled shadows
of last night's quiet fight,

our hearts slapping up armaments
(easy, quick)
and dismantling them again
(slow, careful)
over and over and
again and again until
we collapse into sleep. Still

our bodies curl together seamlessly.

All day now the snow,
slowly burying
the dead grass and fallen leaves.

Wind comes off Lake Champlain, dropping the temperature below 30. My California skin recoils and I shrug deeper into my scarf and jacket. We are going to the co-op for groceries, where we'll miraculously make a meal of only local foods: root vegetables of every possible incarnation, from potatoes to jerusalem artichokes and celeriac; mushrooms for me and turkey for him; flour, which we'll make also into bread later this week; chard; and eggs. Plus toothbrushes to replace those lost on the journey (though later found).

My body is still dull from too much cartime, my brain a little fuzzy. It is stormy and lovely out today, and I plan to stay inside. I have two knitting projects past-due, some coffee direct from Colombia, thanks to a good friend with family to visit, and some serious cuddling, also past-due. Tomorrow we're heading to New Hampshire for a while. If you happen to live in Burlington and are hiring, please let me know.

I-40 unzips Oklahoma like your grandpa's old sweater, with the leather on the elbows and the one cigarette burn at the bottom that he always sort of folded under when he sat down. Oklahoma rolls out from under it, broad flesh and bone. When we get into Arkansas we take the backroads - or the state highways, at least. Stone houses with horsey lots that stretch back to the creek, signs that say catfish, good clouds. In North Carolina the clouds rise out of the mountain valleys and the sign reading Smokys makes me smile. We stop to investigate a tree, all full of fruit and buds in this winter month. Here it is so warm - nearly 60 - that we consider a dip in the river down the road. In Oklahoma two nights back we set the tent beneath a midnight full moon, 30 degrees and falling. Clear cold, and frost to crunch when I ran to the bathroom in the morning.

In Tennessee we bought a banjo, and he is playing it now in our Asheville hotel room and I hope that the rooms beside us are empty. Tomorrow we're headed for Bennington, Vermont, to spend the night in a hunting camp with a friend, then to Burlington thereafter, where I fervently hope Providence sees fit to send me a job.

Back in Arizona after the first 12-hour driving day of many to come between California and Vermont. Here it is crisp and cool and the registrar isn't sure why I never recieved my diploma. There is some snow on the mountains, and some ghosts hiding in the juniper flats. Too many people to see, too many places tugging me towards them. Instead I take a nap - interrupted by the Jehovah's Witnesses - drink too much tea, and try to write. Sun through the oak outside and the ficus inside, deep blue sofa, cashmere blanket, a long haul ahead. Perhaps another nap is in order.