643 days, 10 hours, 32 minutes, 45 seconds

Her first day back, the maid cleaning, just wanting to escape for awhile, she heads over to Popover for lunch, sits in a window seat with an ancient teddy bear on the shelf behind her. Mary said she's careful, in Berkeley, never to hang a picture over the bed. There must be twenty earthquakes a day in the Bay area. Not those that make headlines, certainly, but enough to knock paintings off the walls. Instead, she keeps two teddy bears above her bead, almost hoping they'll fall on her. That nice, soft landing. As their flight back was not, though the pilot, bless his heart, apologized – a strong tailwind, wet ground, and he had to brake hard so as not to skid.

643 days, 11 hours, 16 minutes, 38 seconds

She reaches for the golden ring. Or is it the brass ring? After tales about Goldrush California, she has gold on her mind. Mary pointed to old buildings in San Francisco with gilded roofs and said that, originally, that would have been real gold. She reaches higher.

643 days, 11 hours, 27 minutes, 40 seconds

Remember Easter. That Monday flight that was supposed to be a Sunday flight. What she didn't mention earlier was that their bags were checked on to Kennedy, while the flight they finally caught arrived in Newark. At her insistence, they took a cab to Kennedy that night, despite how late it was, only to find maybe 500 unclaimed suitcases lined up against the wall. And no one was checking baggage tags. Anyway, that's what it looked like at LaGuardia last night, on a smaller scale, maybe 300 bags, holdovers from Sunday's nor'easter. As they waited for the new bags to arrive a skycap was, for the sake of appearances, putting some back on a carousel.

643 days, 11 hours, 47 minutes, 20 seconds

It's so good to be back in normal time. Even if she feels like she's sleepwalking. Even if the trip home was grueling, the plane leaving Texas 45 minutes late, then sitting on the ground for a half hour before a gate was free. Her own bed last night aomewhere between dream and nightmare. There wasn't supposed to be jetlag in this direction, was there? When she was growing up, with parents who never traveled, she thought she'd want a job traveling around the world. But three trips this year will be enough for her. She recalls London, maybe fifteen years ago, her husband's first time out of the US and Canada, a three-night stay in a hotel one step up from flea bag, and how they arrived before noon and crashed for the better part of the day. Such a waste.

645 days, 10 hours, 5 minutes, 42 seconds

She chokes on phlegm or post nasal drip. She doesn't think it's blood. Like something gone down the wrong track. Coughing, trying to suppress a cough. Her throat raw. She thinks maybe climb down the ladder, get a drink, but she doesn't trust that to help. Doesn't trust the ladder. Doesn't trust her friend not to wake. This has been going on for what seems an hour. She doesn't think it's blood. She thinks of Bill, getting cheap theater tickets, then complaining they were seated up in the nosebleed section. Bill dead nearly three years now, a heart attack at a World Series game, most likely choking on his own blood, not quite high enough for the nosebleed section.

645 days, 21 hours, 3 minutes, 2.3seconds

Oh, and by the way, there's a Nor'easter headed for New York, the winds already picking up. It should be over by the time they fly home on Monday, her husband says. They're flying toward Texas first, and the storm will have passed there as well, her friend says. And even if the planes are backed up at the airports, they let the regularly scheduled flights leave as close to on time as possible. Yes, of course, she remembers that flight to Atlanta, when she was the one left behind. But she's not convinced.

645 days, 21 hours, 13 minutes, 49 seconds

It was when they were renting out this space where they're sleeping. Several years ago. A woman sleeping alone in the loft heard snoring. No, she hadn't taken a man home with her, she wasn't that drunk. She descended the ladder, searched, climbed back up. That's when she saw the raccoon sprawled over the skylight, sound asleep. Just the little masked face, like they saw last night peering in their window as they talked. Like they saw on the street tonight. Strange to find animals this close to homes built this close to each other. Strange to sit here typing with someone other than her husband asleep a few feet away. Not masked. Not balding. Not snoring.

646 days, 7 hours, 25 minutes, 21 seconds

Air mattress. Air head. Maybe she and her friend should change places. She wants to say it's all the pressure. Weather. Readings. Friendship. Mattress. Her friend shows her the air in the mattress can be pumped up, but she's almost enjoying floating around like this. The closest to weightless she can get, and up a steep ladder. She's not afraid of heights, she's afraid of crashing.

646 days, 7 hours, 49 minutes, 12 seconds

She wakes to rain pounding the skylight over her air mattress in the loft. No boat. No Internet. She calls her friend, and they agree to just meet for lunch. The rain lets up. She calls her husband. She finds a way to make her wireless work. At least from the guest house. At least from the study. It almost seems as if nothing else matters.

647 days, 21 hours, 3 minutes, 59 seconds

So okay: last night she understands why her blood was high. When you walk into a home in California and the first thing you see is an orange tree, there's no way you can resist fresh-squeezed juice. But then it was down this morning, and okay before dinner, then a dinner of sole, asparagus, and salad, and bedtime when she took it just to see if it was better, just to feel good about herself, it was high. Disgusted, she turns to solitaire. Plays out the second game, then insists she has to play out three games. Takes her blood again, finds it's still high. She gives up. She gives in to the headache that never quite left today, even with Tylenol.

648 days, 4 hours, 35 minutes, 39 seconds

So her reading wasn't till noon and she went to the library thinking she could get on the Internet, only she needed ID to get on the Internet so she sat down and finished a review and then tried to call him at work and got his home machine. At work? She checked the number on her cell. Then she thought it's Friday, he's working at home, he had the calls transferred, except it's Thursday not Friday. And when she reaches him later, at work, he said she obviously dialed wrong.

648 days, 4 hours, 46 minutes, 38 seconds

She got out of the car last night and the first thing she heard was the train whistle, which she hears again now. Freight trains, mostly, though Amtrack runs by here. Her husband, who asked this morning why she didn't call when she got in last night, forgetting the time difference, would have adored these trains, yet this morning she forgot to even mention them. She left her cell phone charger on her desk when she ran out yesterday morning, spent $40 for a new one at the airport. $40 for what would probably be $15 elsewhere. $40. That's how much she loves him.

648 days, 5 hours, 0 minutes, 26 seconds

Ridiculous. It's only four o'clock. It's bright sun out, and she's sitting on the screened-in porch. Everything's skewed in California. A twelve-hour flight yesterday that should have been no more than six, all the way south to north Texas before heading further west. And it will be the same going home, another two or three-hour layover. All because she didn't want to spring for the direct flight. All because she worried about missing connections. Then, after a plane ride that didn't even offer snacks and a meal at TGI Friday's, she arrived in Sacramento at nine o'clock, midnight by her watch, lugging her suitcase down an endless jetway straight into the arms of what seemed like a section of rowdy high school cheerleaders there to welcome home a Mormon missionary. And his family. Probably his family.

650 days, 11 hours, 12 minutes, 5 seconds

She reads that four scientists at Leeds University have spent more than 1000 hours testing 700 variations of traditional bacon to discover what people respond to most. So what? She thinks. Except that her grandmother spent her first 23 years in Leeds. It was rumored to be the most anti-semitic area of England. She saw that for herself when she traveled there twenty-five years ago. It's not smell and taste, they discovered, but texture and the sound one makes while eating. Yes, she agrees, the texture. Text and subtext.

651 days, 12 hours, 1 minutes, 43 seconds

She thinks of the National Debt Clock that used to be near Bryant Park (actually, right near the first Staples store she'd ever seen, back in 1989). In September 2000, it read National Debt: $5,676,989,904,887, Your family's share: $73,733. But this wasn't right. As the millennium neared, it had begun counting backwards. Or maybe the government began back-pedaling. Or lying. Most likely lying. And the computer glitch everyone was concerned about. Then the clock was covered over. Then the clock was gone. Then a flashy new clock appeared above the Virgin Records Store in Union Square. She has a picture of it somewhere that she can't find now. Taking that photo, she thought it was the National Debt Clock resurrected. Now she's not so sure. She saw it from the doctor's office.

651 days, 14 hours, 0 minutes, 39 seconds

She has a cold sore on the edge of her lip. Just great. She's going to California in two days and today she develops a cold sore on her lip. It's too close to her mouth for Neosporin or Cortisone cream, so she rubs on Anbesol. Nearly seventeen years ago, when they were first together, she applied Anbesol to some cold sores just before bed. He commented on the fragrance.

651 days, 14 hours, 26 minutes, 52 seconds

She has diabetes. His mother had diabetes. It turns out his flight was delayed last night because one of the flight attendants went into a diabetic coma. They had to stop in Atlanta, and Spirit doesn't fly to Atlanta. Then they had to find a replacement crew member who happened to be in the area on Easter Sunday.

One Easter when they went to Florida it turned out their Monday tickets home were actually Sunday tickets. And the flight was full. And the next flight was full. And the next flight was full, and so on, and so forth. They ended up taking a flight to Atlanta, where they were told there was a better chance of getting a flight to New York.

His mother was alive then.

651 days, 21 hours, 59 minutes, 37 seconds

He called about ten minutes ago to say his plane landed. Now he has to wait for his bags, find a taxi (at this hour they probably won't be prevalent, especially if the flight's full). It will be another hour at least before he gets home. She takes a shower. She wishes, for the first time in years, that she wasn't on all the headache medications, hadn't become so sensitive to even the perfumes one finds in many soaps. Wishes she could smell sweet for him.

652 days, 1 hours, 28 minutes, 45 seconds

She stopped on the thruway to e-mail him she'd stopped on the thruway. They now have Wi-Fi available, free, at all the rest stops. He e-mailed her from the airport in Lauderdale to say his flight's delayed nearly three hours, something about the plane being detoured to San Juan, but he has free Wi-Fi as well. And please don't wait up for him.

652 days, 10 hours, 36 minutes, 31 seconds

Not all those ones back there, but a virtual parade of ones, in pairs. If she didn't have that sort of marriage, where they're together but sacrifice nothing of themselves, she wouldn't be here. No, that sounds so selfish. She means they can be together, share everything, yet hold onto the parts of themselves they value most. Not to mention friends they had before knowing each other. In so many other relationships she saw the women changing, playing games, pretending to be what a partner wanted so long that they actually became that. If that's what was needed, she'd prefer to be alone. She's upstate. He's in Florida.

652 days, 10 hours, 54 minutes, 13 seconds

More trash.

652 days, 11 hours, 11 minutes, 11 seconds

Easter Sunday upstate. Brown grass, white snow patches, and the red breasts of four robins she sees out her kitchen window make her think of Global Warming. It's starting to snow again. She has to drive home today. 11, 11, 11 – all the ones in there. She's alone.

652 days, 11 hours, 41 minutes, 3.1 seconds

"Each image must lead, directly or indirectly, to the next image," she's been telling students for years, quoting Charles Olson. That's how she sees this blog shaping up. Once she makes the first entry, others follow in a mad rush. Or she must be mad. She feels as if she's opening a can of worms – another cliché she pontificates to students, showing them how each memory sparks the next memory, or how what someone else writes sparks their memories. Keep it short and focused, she tells them, and reminds herself now. Each entry of this blog to be just the one image, if there's more go to a new post. One perception must immediately and directly lead to a further perception – that's what Olson really said. She Googled it.

652 days, 11 hours, 56 minutes, 29 seconds

We're going to the country and we're gonna get happy, going to the country and we're gonna get ha-a-a-appy, going to the country we love... She used to sing that in the car, while the cat was whining in her carrier. Two years before she even knew him. The cat was all she had. He despised that cat.

652 days, 12 hours, 1 minutes, 49 seconds

We're going to the chapel and we're gonna get married... They couldn't have been together more than a few months. They'd driven somewhere in the city, came home, parked (she thinks on 91st St.), they kept the car on the street back in those safe days. They had the oldies station on, and this song came on just as they were about to get out of the car. She started singing along with it. He looked up, surprised, commenting that for the first time since they'd been together she was right on beat and right on key.

652 days, 12 hours, 22 minutes, 8 seconds

Whenever I want you all I have to do is dream... (Everly Brothers), I want a dream lover, so I don't have to dream alone... (Bobby Darin, or Bobby Rydell, though for some reason she thought it was Johnny Tillotson). Probably she'd have heard the Rydell, he the Darin. She plays the thirty second sample of Rydell, and her feet go into a cha-cha. She does that because she's alone. She'd never dance in public, not since Mrs. Dalbreth's. With her husband, alone, she even sometimes sings snatches of these songs. Whenever he's teasing, wanting her to buy him a piano, a Lexus, a home theater, new $10,000 speakers. Song after song. He claims she's destroying his love of them. Some day she plans to put them all on a cd. Maybe for their anniversary.

652 days, 12 hours, 30 minutes, 51 seconds

She's dreaming again. Or remembering her dreams again. Six dreams in the past two weeks. Usually she only dreams this much in the summer, when she's quiet enough to pay attention, and this past summer was a disaster – her printer breaking, her computer breaking, her father turning 90, planning a surprise party for her father. She felt as if she had no summer, as if she never calmed down. And there were only five dreams the entire summer. Now here she is, harried, frantic, driving upstate and back in two days, and she's dreaming.

652 days, 22 hours, 59 minutes, 47 seconds

Portrait of the happy couple: in a motel in Mystic, fireplace, furnished with antiques. The bed's so high he has to lift her up. The two of them sprawl amidst a dozen pillows, laptops buffered by a down comforter, surfing the Internet. It's their first experience with wi-fi. One of those Kodak moments.

652 days, 23 hours, 2 minutes, 32 seconds

They met by computer. No, not the dating sites so many others used, but in a computer users group, long before the Internet. They both had Kaypros, the old cp/m machines, luggable, the only one that could comfortably fit in her small apartment. Then she went away for the summer, wanted to call him but was afraid she'd be rejected. She knew if she called with a computer problem he'd be more than happy to talk with her. But she had to learn enough to have a real problem, so he wouldn't see through her ruse. Then she returned to the city, all but moved in with him, had her computer upgraded at his urging. It never worked after that.

652 days, 23 hours, 25 minutes, 3 seconds

Set it back to ground zero? Strange choice of words.

She remembers, the morning the towers fell, she'd just gotten up, turned on the computer, got a news alert saying second tower hit. Her husband called, asked her to call her father and his father, assure them they were alright. She said she'd do it in awhile. He said do it now, while there are still working phone lines. Then his friend from England called, didn't recognize her voice, hung up, called back.

She remembered this woman from years ago. The first time she ever felt competitive. Regarding him, at least. She was getting very mixed signals.

652 days, 23 hours, 46 minutes, 15 seconds

Twice in the past month she's thought, not about getting a new computer, but about setting this one back to ground zero and rebuilding it, without the port replicator this time. But, as her husband said more than once, she'd probably only screw it up with all that software she loads. Then the past few days it's seemed especially slow. Possibly due to her my pictures screen saver, which loads big files. So she sets one of the pre-loaded savers, hates it, sets a my pictures directory of smaller files, then takes it out altogether so she can run disk optimizer. She didn't think to put it back until tonight, then decided to download the Backwards Bush screen saver. Which, again, isn't set for daylight savings time. It's gotten so she doesn't know what to believe. Or who to trust. Love. Trust. She's still alone, up in the country, just for the one night. She wants to be home when her husband gets there. He's apologized for that computer comment, by the way. Calls her one of the best users. But she no longer believes him.

654 days, 1 hours, 56 minutes, 11 seconds

Bush can't take the stress, it seems. Thirty-six hours after she's bought the stress ball, and all the writing's worn off, the face reduced to a few lines here and there. Unrecognizable. Probably he planned to disappear like this, some sort of quick-change act that will have friends and family laughing the next morning. Still, it gives her hope.

655 days, 6 hours, 32 minutes, 17 seconds

She's been shopping. Isn't that what wives do when their husbands are away? She looks at shoes, buys takeout dinner for herself, stops in the neighborhood gift shop where she saw Bush Countdown keychains to get a different one. This is a Bush's Last Day clock, without his picture on it, only: earth, water, air. Once again made in China. She also buys a Bush's Last Day tee-shirt, though God knows where she'll wear it, and a pale yellow stress ball with Bush's face on one side, a quote on the other side: It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it. GWB. Part of the face and some of the letters have worn down. It's the last one they had (good to think of other hands using this). She comes home to find Office Depot double-delivered the cups and batteries due here yesterday, takes everything upstairs in a cart from the laundry room (no one's in there doing laundry, not at nearly dinnertime). She had lunch very late, even for her.

655 days, 8 hours, 12 minutes, 53 seconds

Armed with her camera, she pushes her way to a window seat at the Starbucks on 81st & Broadway. A homeless woman with a huge assortment of bags is sitting on the median bench. She watches a woman stop and hand her a dollar, bending close to say something. She watches the bag lady pack up with great care, placing garbage bags over everything, including two of her three carts. Then she takes them apart and packs up again. And again. And again. She takes picture after picture, but no camera could capture this.

655 days, 12 hours, 27 minutes, 29.2 seconds

An editorial by a British woman speaks of Barbara Boxer's comment that Condoleeza Rice doesn't have to worry about her sons being killed in Iraq. A comment picked up by blogs everywhere. She follows the leads, ending up at an Amazon.com list of books and music by famous childless women, twenty-four in all: Emily Dickenson, Jane Austen, Dolly Parton, Marilyn Monroe, Virginia Woolf, Angela Davis, Bessie Smith, Gertrude Stein, Liza Minnelli, Mary Cassatt, Zora Neale Hurston... She wonders if her name will ever be among them.

655 days, 12 hours, 39 minutes, 50 seconds

Some Hospitals Call 911 To Save Their Patients, the New York Times headline reads. Hospitals specializing in only one or two procedures. Hospitals without a doctor always in attendance. Doctor-owned hospitals. A 44-year-old man just died, and an 88-year-old woman. The man lived in Texas. She can't help thinking of the president. And the little red phone beside his desk, for use in emergency. This headline lay on her virtual desk three days before she even looked at it.

655 days, 13 hours, 8 minutes, 2.6 seconds

She sits at the kitchen table with a low-carb breakfast bar. She teaches tomorrow, then plans to drive upstate. Good Friday, and the traffic should be hell. Then she'll drive back on Easter. What she really wants is a few days just by herself in the city. But she has to get up there. She wets a finger and picks a crumb of chocolate off the table, puts it in her mouth. It's nice to reach for a little black spot like that, not in the least bit worried it might be mouse turd.

655 days, 13 hours, 14 minutes, 26 seconds

She wakes to snow flurries. He's leaving for Florida in forty minutes. She supposes she should get up and see him off. She wants to tell him now that's the wrong shirt to wear, too bright for those slacks, but she doesn't. On the plane he'll look like some Queens or Brooklyn version of a Floridian. She goes downstairs for breakfast early, to spend a bit more time with him. He gets a call from work. He packs up his computer. The car service calls from downstairs. He's off.

656 days, 13 hours, 19 minutes, 56 seconds

Last night her husband yelled at her. Or this morning, really. It was 2:00 a.m. When he got in bed she just wanted to finish sending off some poems, pasting them into an e-mail, recording the submission. Then she went to back up the computer. But back up a step: she checked her email. Then she backed up the computer (just files from her document directory, just the changed files). It doesn't take long. Her husband put the radio on. She was halfway into the bathroom, ready to wash up and go to bed, when she had another idea. So she came back into the room and sat down with it. The radio shut itself off. He wasn't asleep yet. That's when he yelled that her typing was keeping him awake. She should go into the living room. And she was half tempted. But by the time she shut down, unplugged the port replicator, then turned the computer on again, she'd lose her train of thought. As if she hadn't already.

656 days, 22 hours, 8 minutes, 37 seconds or 656 days, 23 hours, 8 minutes, 37 seconds

Depending which clock you believe. The first is on the Backwards Bush site (from which she set her keychain). The second is on this very blog (using code from the Backwards Bush site) as well as the National Nightmare site. It has to do with the change in Daylight Savings Time. It has to do with the webmaster paying someone else to create the clock for him. It took her two weeks to notice this. More than likely the president never will.

657 days, 13 hours, 59 minutes, 38 seconds

The distinct sound of the woodpecker hitting his beak against a tree by her pond upstate. How she used to love to sit and watch and listen. Then she grew afraid about Lyme disease. Then his father got Babesiosis, spread by a tick native to Rhode Island, and almost died, and almost destroyed his recent second marriage. Then he, her husband, understood her fears.

657 days, 21 hours, 32 minutes, 15 seconds

Opening Day all over again. But if Congress won't give him money to send more troops to Iraq, and if they insist upon questioning his staff under oath, and if they keep calling for Gonzalez's Hispanic testicles on a platter, then he'll be damned if he'll play ball. He sits behind that great big desk, hand hovering above the red button, sulking. And her? She's left batting his head around, wracking up more countries than she can name. Except she's not very focused today.

660 days, 9 hours, 27 minutes, 19 seconds

660. All morning that number's been haunting her. Area code? Zip code? At last she looks it up, sees it's the area code for central Missouri. Central Missouri State University. Where a friend taught was until this year. An associate professor with tenure and his two children were born at home with a midwife because the school didn't pay enough toward medical insurance. Not to mention the paltry salary. He gave up tenure to get the hell out of their. Look at his wife's family – the number of amputated limbs that could be chalked up to poor medical care. They'd had custody of her daughter but had to leave her with the father when they moved. Missouri makes it all but impossible to take a child out of state. The personal. The political.

660 days, 10 hours, 29 minutes, 10.7 seconds

In line at the coffee shop. The two youngest children wander farther into the dining room. Then the youngest pulls away. His sister tries to lure him back, calls to someone, then leaves him alone to drag an older sister over. The mother smiles. In all, there are four children. They get a table. The mother carries the youngest now.

661 days, 11 hours, 39 minutes, 36 seconds

She knew she didn't want a marriage like her parents had. They didn't fight, didn't cheat on each other. They would have called this a good marriage. But she wanted more. And it took being away from home for fifteen years before she started looking beyond that, looking at three friends in particular who had long term relationships that she could envision for herself. Then, twenty years ago, her mother had a stroke, and she and her lover flew to California. All her father wanted to do was sit by her mother's bedside. On the plane home, she asked her then-lover-later-husband if he envisioned himself ever caring about her that much.

661 days, 20 hours, 45 minutes, 17 seconds

So she gets in bed and finds him lying on his back, snoring, and leaving her barely room to scrunch against the wall. She's obviously not able to sleep this way. She gets up, showers, tests her blood again: 133. With love, all things are possible.

661 days, 21 hours, 22 minutes, 41 seconds

Twelve years ago a friend and his wife sat on her sofa and talked of their daughter's upcoming wedding. She forgets the exact context now, probably she was questioning if this was the match made in heaven. And she answered that she'd prefer her daughter marry and divorce than not to marry, how much easier it was for a divorced woman to get jobs, and to attract other men. Something like that.

And, probably that same day, these parents talked of how they thought they had a solid marriage, but they'd never really had to put it to the test.

The daughter married that May. The father died in July. After that she lost touch.

661 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes, 1 seconds

Can you think of any better time than your anniversary to get your head shot up with poison? Insurance will pay for the doctor, not the poison. Which is more than they did a year ago. She likes to tell people she married him for his apartment and his medical insurance.

661 days, 21 hours, 46 minutes, 40 seconds

169. Her blood should be under 140. She knew she was pushing the envelope tonight. Anyway, while she's waiting up she decides to write to S. Happy anniversary.

661 days, 22 hours, 26 minutes, 31.7 seconds

She can't go to bed yet. She had chocolate mousse for dinner (actually they called it chocolate mini-mousse) and the longer she stays up the lower her blood count will be. It's that simple.

661 days, 23 hours, 0 minutes, 18.6 seconds

Don't ever get married, it will spoil your relationship, she told her closest friend thirty years ago. And S. repeated this comment at the wedding party she and her husband threw for them. Then two years ago, March 30th, midnight, the stroke of their anniversary, she was on the phone with S., the first time they'd spoken in years. S. was in the middle of a divorce. She'd lost all track of time.

661 days, 23 hours, 14 minutes, 3 seconds

He announces he's dying an Ambien death, and crawls into bed. He didn't get the watch at midnight, he tells her, it was closer to two in the morning. Did they really stay up that late? They were idiots and they stayed up that late.

She recalls, years ago, staying with friends, watching in silence as his wife would go to bed hours before he did. She vowed that could never happen to her. Yet here she is, still typing madly. Three feet behind her, in bed, he turns on the radio. It will cover the noise of her typing. It will help him sleep.

661 days, 23 hours, 34 minutes, 15 seconds

Midnight. The witching hour. She gives him i-pod speakers to replace the ones which broke last year. Which she also gave him. For another anniversary. Tonight he's taking Ambien, wanting the full night's sleep he was robbed of a few nights ago. What he calls her animal noises kept him awake. Any minute now and she'll turn into a pumpkin.

662 days, 0 hours, 5 minutes, 52 seconds

They weren't together more than three or four months. They went out to dinner at a little restaurant in the Village. There was a woman reading cards there, and they decided what the hell. She predicted they'd enjoy their time together, but the relationship wouldn't last more than three years. That was when they decided to make the most of their time together.

662 days, 0 hours, 10 minutes, 54 seconds

Ten minutes until their anniversary. It was seventeen years ago midnight when she gave him a watch as a wedding present. She can't remember the exact time of their marriage, but she remembers midnight. The two of them alone after dinner with both sets of parents, the first time the parents met, in a restaurant which, six years ago, turned into a gypsy fortune teller's storefront.

662 days, 0 hours, 26 minutes, 44 seconds

Less than 72 hours until baseball's opening day. And of course next weekend's when he's going to visit family in Florida. Some year, he keeps saying, he wants to get down there during spring training, but always he just misses it. Most years she goes down with him. This has more or less been an Easter tradition since they married, seventeen years ago. Their first night she fell in his brother's pool. And she was fully dressed. And she can't swim. And his brother laughed and laughed. And his father ran for a camera. And their motel room had two single beds, which they pushed together. The honeymoon suite, his brother called it.

663 days, 6 hours, 46 minutes, 7 seconds

She wishes this was a watch and not a key chain. A Backwards Bush watch. People might think it a Swatch at first, those ornamental faces. Then they might look at the numbers and get totally confused as to what time it is. Okay already. Her wrists are too small to wear a Swatch anyway. She doesn't even use this as a key chain. Or not for keys, anyway. She can just picture what would have happened, last year, when she lost her keys in Duane Reade, the manager asking if there was anything unique about her key chain. Picture trying to explain what Bush's face was doing there. And why her husband wanted it returned to her.

664 days, 4 hours, 24 minutes, 9 seconds

She waits outside for him, while he drops off an umbrella borrowed from a friend. It's what women do. They wait. This is a woman friend. It's the first warm night, a March that feels more like May. They were married in March.

665 days, 9 hours, 48 minutes, 5 seconds

As she destroys 194 countries with the bouncing bush head before even going downstairs for breakfast, she's reminded of The War of the Roses. It's not a movie she'd have elected to see on her own, but her husband told her it had something to do with Shakespeare's plays. This was back when she believed him. A horrid divorce comedy, but the one image she remembers is the ex inviting her husband to dinner, making a meat dish which he enjoyed immensely. Then he asked where the dog was.

666 days, 12 hours, 26 minutes, 28 seconds

She takes a few minutes out to play the Bush Pong game. She pretends it's her cousin's head there.

666 days, 12 hours, 48 minutes, 4 seconds

822-2666. She can't tell you how many times a day her mother dialed this number. Her sister-in-law. Her closest friend. Sometimes it seemed like her only friend. It bothered her the way her brother spent money, though. It bothered her that Sally would always say something cost $5 or $7, when it was really $5.99 or $7.99. As if pennies never mattered to her. Her brother was like that, too, not caring how much things cost. He was a liquor salesman. They'd go out to dinner and he'd order wine that he poured in the bucket when no one was looking. He'd buy expensive clothes or furniture then throw a screaming fit when it broke or no one was wearing it. She and her husband rented their house every summer so they could pay off their mortgage. They scrimped and saved, then saved more. This is what they passed on to their daughter.

666 days, 12 hours, 54 minutes, 56 seconds

822-2666. Her aunt. Her uncle. Her cousin. She doesn't know which one it is who holds that pitchfork. Prodding her. Scaring her. The night she slept over, awakened when her uncle came home screaming. The two of them screaming for hours. She supposes her cousin is used to this. And her cousin, in the bed across the room, sleeps on as if to point up how ridiculous it is for her to be afraid, a real cry baby. No matter how well they ever played together, there would be memories of her cousin deserting her. She loved her aunt, though.

666 days, 13 hours, 23 minutes, 57 seconds

666-6666: Carmel again. The night they returned from Florida at two in the morning and had arranged to be met at Newark airport. No car. He insists they wait. No car. He calls, they say the driver was sent out. No driver. It's nearly three in the morning. Finally they end up sharing the one cab in sight with a woman who lives in Washington Heights. The cab's just about to pull out when a woman with a baby stops them. She lives right in the area. Please, can he drive her there first? They agree. She gets lost. The driver gets lost somewhere in New Jersey. The baby sleeps.

666 days, 13 hours, 30 minutes, 18 seconds

Carmel Car Service (her husband's cab of choice): 666-6666. Christmas, headed for the Newark airport, they had a driver working only his second or third day. Traffic was horrendous, over an hour just to get to the Lincoln Tunnel. Then the traffic on the Turnpike. Finally they get to the airport, with maybe a half hour to spare (and this was after 9/11). Don't worry, he assures her. Everyone else will be delayed as well. And just as he speaks these words the driver misses the turn for the terminal. He calls on his cell and learns the plane's leaving on time. They end up spending the night in an airport hotel. He has his new leather coat on and doesn't want to ruin it running through a crowd. She paid for half of it, as his Christmas present. 666. The Devil.

667 days, 9 hours, 28 minutes, 33 seconds

She gives up on the pedometer. Don't tell her friend. But first it didn't count enough steps, so the stride had to be reset. Then the weight was set wrong. Then she couldn't access anything but the steps, and the resets every day at midnight never took place. After last night's struggles with the BB clock, she thought maybe she'd give it another try. Then she saw it lying by itself on the desk, its empty face turned toward her.

667 days, 10 hours, 17 minutes, 57 seconds

Rumor has it that President Bush keeps one of these countdown key chains with him all the time, to remind him how much time he has left to accomplish all he's entitled to. Now, if he can just find his keys...

667 days, 10 hours, 31 minutes, 42 seconds

Bush to Dems: Opposition Wastes Time. They're picking fights with the White House instead of resolving monetary disputes for sending more troops to Iraq. "Members of Congress now face a choice: whether they will waste time and provoke an unnecessary confrontation, or whether they will join us in working to do the people's business," CBS News reports our president proclaiming. The clock is running. If senate doesn't approve the emergency funding by April 15 our men and women in uniform will face significant disruptions. So will their families. April 15th is a Sunday this year. Taxes aren't due until the 16th. 667 days, 10 hours, 23 minutes, 41 seconds.

668 days, 1 hours, 25 minutes, 57 seconds

On the wall of her house upstate, in the room that used to be her study, there's a cardboard Howdy Doody clock. White, red, and blue. The puppet's face, then the numbers around it, and the two moveable clock hands. She wants to say she had this from her childhood, but in truth she bought it at a street fair the third weekend she and her husband spent together. She loved Howdy Doody, though. No lie.

Children today have digital clocks and watches (when they bother to wear a watch at all). They won't have to know the big hand vs. the little hand. That's what always confused his best friend's daughter. Now, for her daughter, for Christmas, they buy a plush Hickory Hickory Dock Clock with six brightly colored mice and a pendulum that rattles. The mice go in the chimney and come out the door. In her house upstate, not far from where she's hung Howdy Doody, there are real mice.

668 days, 1 hours, 32 minutes, 34 seconds

It was wrong to have reset her clock to the instructions at BackwardsBush.com, when the keychain was actually purchased from Nationalnightmare.com. Now, looking at their site, she sees it, too, is an hour off. That's what happens when she orders from California, she supposes. But she wanted to support the Bookshop Santa Cruz. Bullshit. She wanted free shipping.

668 days, 2 hours, 10 minutes, 49 seconds

Much as she's feared – the keychain and the computer's clock don't match – only the computer got this early start to daylight savings time. A submarine might have clearer instructions. There's the current time, then January 20, 2009 as the goal (actually you could set it for any time, up to 2024). At one point it looks as if there are 2400 days left. Then she finally gets everything set, but the clock on the computer says six hours, the one in her hand now says two. She runs a cold hand over her forehead, twirls a finger in her hair, finally remembers to refresh the computer's clock. The keychain's two minutes behind. Close enough. It's been a long day.

668 days, 6 hours, 39 minutes, 5.2 seconds

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. 38 seconds, 37 seconds, 35 seconds. She's waiting for one friend and one woman she's never met before. 30 seconds. This clock will never be stolen because our employees are always watching it, above the counter in one tacky diner after another. 38 minutes. She got here early. A waitress comes over to say hello. This is where she usually eats with her husband.

668 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes, 7 seconds

Again, late at night, she looks over old mail, mostly newsletters sent to her G-mail address. Breast cancer. Diabetes. Migraine. Why she continues to subscribe to all these is beyond her. She doesn't need to give hypochondria food for thought. She's got the best doctors. The migraines are under control.

Her headaches are almost under control. She waited too long to call the doctor, now has to wait over a week before she sees him. Botox only takes a minute, she tried to convince the receptionist. He said he could fit her in. He promised... An appointment for March 30. Her 17th anniversary. A reminder of the days leading up to her wedding. She didn't want to get married with a sinus headache, she decided, spur of the moment. She had no doubt it was sinus. A doctor thought brain tumor.

She said she'd marry him and then had her head examined: quip one. She had her head examined and they found nothing: quip two. This was before the cancer, before the diabetes, before she had access to the Internet.

669 days, 8 hours, 5 minutes, 57 seconds

The villa's about to be torn down! That isolated house in the middle of a 300 foot pit whose owner was resisting developers' efforts to purchase. It turns out this battle has been going on for more than three years. It turns out the owner doesn't live there. A judge now gives them three days to clear out.

She doesn't know what's more upsetting – the fact that it's being torn down or the fact that nobody lives there. It's just the owner's selfish greed that's been at stake here.

She learns of this on the night her co-op board meets. Talk about pettiness. One owner out of two hundred causing trouble. A board election which, for the first time in the twenty-two years she's been here, doesn't have enough candidates to fill the seats. And the building's facing a huge decision in 2012, when they lose their low-income tax incentive, so who's on the board over the next few years will be crucial. Her husband was president of the board before she knew him. He ran once again, maybe fifteen years ago, and lost. And here he is running off to the meeting.

She thinks she'll stay home.

671 days, 13 hours, 16 minutes, 25 seconds

Her father, twelve years ago now, two days after her mother's funeral, driving the family out to dinner and going the wrong way around a traffic circle he'd driven most of his life.

671 days, 22 hours, 43 minutes, 55 seconds

Another friend writes of driving around half the day in an attempt to focus. And she recalls many times, uptight, frazzled by the city, she's gotten in the car headed for her home upstate. It's physical then. She feels how tightly she's gripping that steering wheel. The sun comes through the windshield and lands on finger after finger. One by one, the fingers loosen their grip. By the time she's forty minutes out of the city most of the tension's drained from her body.

671 days, 23 hours, 30 minutes, 36 seconds

Christmas after Christmas they travel to Texas. Christmas after Christmas, sitting around the dining room table, they've learned to exchange snippets of their lives. And his niece told once of the troubled teens she teaches. There was one she had to wrestle to the ground. Others are autistic. That's where the video games come in. Kids who don't know how to have a typical conversation suddenly understand the script of the game, and will interact, making it into a dialog of sorts. The usually lethargic assume the game's animation.

What happens when these kids graduate high school? she'd bit her lip and dared to ask.

Well, many can go to normal colleges. In college there isn't the social conformity of grade schools and high schools, many of them will do fine.

She remembers Diet Coke going down the wrong tract. She had no social skills growing up. She couldn't seem to have the sort of conversations her parents and teachers expected. She never made it to college. Writing, pad and pen, then later typewriter, became the equivalent of her video game.

She's just trying to put the world in focus.

671 days, 23 hours, 33 minutes, 36 seconds

Her husband, hearing the shots of the Bush game, calls up to ask what she's doing (implying why is she wasting her time), and she calls back down that she's not playing she's writing. Just trying to focus.

672 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 39 seconds

There's a parable she often uses in teaching, probably a bastardized version by this time. But a king's daughter was ready for marriage, and he announced he would give his daughter to the marksman who could hit the bird in the eye. He set a date for all interested men to gather. But one caveat: if they shot and missed, they'd be put to death.

The first hunter stepped up, aimed his bow. The king motioned for him to wait, then asked what he saw. "Oh," he said, "this is the most beautiful forest in the kingdom." The king refused to let him shoot. The next hunter came up and took aim, and again the king stopped him and asked what he saw. "The tree, in which that bird is, is the greenest tree in the forest," he said. And once again the king refused to let him shoot. And so on through hunter after hunter. Finally a man stepped up. When the king asked what he saw, he replied "I see only the eye of the bird." The king let him shoot, and of course he hit the bird in the eye.

So it's a question of focus.

The hand-eye coordination. Trying to predict where the head will bounce. Keeping her fingers steady. If she turns away for half a second that head bounces off the screen. If she moves her cursor a tenth of an inch off Cheney's face, that head bounces off the screen.

God, this much focus on a president.

673 days, 5 hours, 33 minutes, 56 seconds

With a now-blinding headache (possibly from staring into the computer screen, trying to meet it halfway), the new computer, and boxes all over the living room, this entire apartment has become a war zone.

673 days, 7 hours, 21 minutes, 34 seconds

She's got stomach cramps, one of the glucophage side effects she was warned about. So maybe the two pills are working, whereas one did almost nothing. She chews two Tums, just in case it's heartburn. But she's seldom been so happy to be sick. Except, of course, when she recalls those childhood migraines that manifested themselves as stomach aches. How quickly the body remembers pain. How easily she could become that child again. It'll pass in a week or two. Then she'll grow up all over, maybe this time with fonder memories. You can't relive the past, you can just rewrite it.

673 days, 7 hours, 52 minutes, 47 seconds

180 countries destroyed! Hate level 8! She's discovered, when Bush glides along that top line and the sound effects turn into machine guns, she could trap him behind Cheney's face and just keep firing.

Suddenly she has the memory of Monkey in the Middle. A game she detested. Especially when you're the shortest kid in the class and at the end of the line when the photographer takes pictures each year. She hated having her picture taken. But that lineup was just so the photographer didn't have to keep raising and lowering his tripod, her parents said. The school and the teacher made no distinction. And she was the first in line in the photograph from her ballet school. You can't have everything.

As soon as she starts thinking about all this, her aim slips. Even Bush as Monkey no longer entices her.

673 days, 9 hours, 26 minutes, 20 seconds

Downstairs, her husband's setting up his new computer, the first Vista in his office, or their household. She pongs Bush until her mouse-arm hurts. Those two Cheney heads on the sides – she remembers now, they're called Flippers. She thinks of Dolphins. Of the friendly dolphin in an area promoted as swimming with dolphins, who spooked and attacked a swimmer. She remembers her husband, when he first moved to Windows, learning mouse clicks then drag and drop by playing Monopoly with his boss as stand-in opponent. He kept winning and winning and winning. Boasting about his winning.

673 days, 10 hours, 23 minutes, 48 seconds

She knew about R2-D2 and his new stamp, knew the post office was setting up 400 R2-D2 mailboxes around the country, as a matter of fact she logged onto the post office website to see if they were selling Star Wars merchandise yet (great idea for a Christmas present, though this is only March). Then to find this animated little guy working his way around the site, covering up services, his gears squeaking (30 years is a long time). A video announces the coming attraction. Due out March 28. In the meantime, R2-D2 swallows a letter.

673 days, 11 hours, 8 minutes, 43 seconds

She wakes up, turns on the computer, checks her blood (normal for the third morning in a row), checks her mail, eats a Glucerna bar for breakfast, talks to her in-laws, racks up a score of sixty-one ponging Bush. Not a bad start to the day, although it's nearly one o'clock now. She slept late.

673 days, 22 hours, 8 minutes, 48 seconds

Back in her young, apolitical days, she loved playing pinball. These nights she follows the Backwards Bush links to arrive at a Bush Pong Game. Dominate, the first screen reads. Playing the theme from Bonanza. She madly clicks on the Bushhead bouncing about one of those flat maps like they have in schoolrooms. Sometimes it scores, sometimes not. Sometimes it racks up a score of ten or twenty with one shot. There are no instructions.

It takes her awhile to realize it's Siamese twin Cheney, one head on each side of the flat world, that has to bat against him for the guns to fire. Left to his own devices, Bush would duck behind the bobbing head and sneak off the screen.

Five heads per game, as if five heads are better than one. Bush's head gains momentum when ten countries are destroyed, then again at twenty and thirty. She's got to shoot precisely when the heads bump. Without quite knowing how she did it, she reaches a hate level of six with seventy-three countries destroyed. Most games it's only in the twenties.

We'll make no distinction between the terrorists, secretaries, business men and women, moms and dads, friends and neighbors, Bush says instead of Game Over. The words don't make sense. We' ll make no distinction between the terrorists' secretaries? She cuts his voice off quickly, but can't pull herself away. Her husband crawls into bed. Just one more game, she assures him.

674 days, 9 hours, 23 minutes, 5 seconds

Jennifer Mee's hiccups are back! This fifteen-year-old from Florida hiccuped for five weeks straight. Then a few sporadic bouts. But two days back at school, then a nosebleed, then the hiccups started as bad as ever. She can't stop reading news about this story. When she was fifteen, the best she could do to get out of school was fake a nervous breakdown.

675 days, 12 hours, 9 minutes, 30 seconds

As she rises from bed, her mind still foggy, white fog outside the window, her glasses still on the desk across the room, the tan top of one water tower on a building a few streets away appears to be a breast, with a nipple.

675 days, 12 hours, 24 minutes, 25.3 seconds

Now she's wondering if even two glucophage are going to be enough. Her blood still high. Her body still wanting. More more more more – like some toddler. It was 68 degrees out Wednesday. This is Friday and she wakes to snow. Snow and freezing rain to continue into tomorrow. More, more, more, more. She doesn't get a break.

677 days, 0 hours, 40 minutes, 24 seconds

Hearing that last entry read aloud at the workshop, Emily comments that, of course, with Bush, the odd or even numbers won't make any difference, he'd never be able to add, subtract, or divide them.

677 days, 5 hours, 39 minutes, 21 seconds

Not a number in that whole batch that can be evenly divided. Sort of like playing with marbles as a child, one for you, one for me, one for you, one for me, then the odd cat's eye standing there unblinking. Her brothers, if she'd had brothers, would probably have done the same with little lead soldiers. And she supposes some boys wanted them all for themselves, throwing a soldier with rifle on shoulder down the sink in a tantrum, clogging the whole drain, and just not caring.

677 days, 10 hours, 14 minutes, 16.2 seconds

Me moriré en París con aguacero,
un dia del cual tengo ya el recuerdo.
Me moriré en París—y no me corro—
tal vez un jueves, como es hoy, de otoño.

(Cesar Vallejo, "Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca")

677 days, 10 hours, 53 minutes, 51 seconds

And she has 660,052,431 seconds left to live. If you believe the Death Clock, the Internet's friendly reminder that life is slipping away... second by second. She filled in her age, height, weight, said she isn't a smoker, isn't depressed, optimistic, or pessimistic. Now it tells her she'll die on February 13, 2028. The day before Valentine's Day. February's always been the bleakest month for her. Just when she's searching for a way to put this clock in her taskbar, remind her of all the time she's wasting aimlessly surfing or playing solitaire, she sees a link to delay the date of your death. It takes her to some stupid health clock, with information about cholesterol (she already takes zocor), diabetes (she's now on glucophage), breast cancer (which she's had once in each breast), HIV, lymphoma, lung cancer, etc. Now the death clock's gone from the screen. She fills it all out again. 660, 051, 700. February 13, 2028, will be a Sunday.

679 days, 8 hours, 14 minutes, 43 seconds

She wonders how many days, hours, minutes until she buys a new computer. Which is absolutely ridiculous. This 15.4" Fujitsu with such a great screen that she discarded her external monitors is precisely 251 days old, under warranty for another 114 days. There's nothing wrong with it, except for the generic port replicator that screwed up her sound system. Except for programs she's installed then discarded, leaving stray dll files around. Except for the fact that it boots but sometimes has problems loading its usual deluge of memory residents. She's scaled down her startup file. She ran disk doctor and win doctor. It's worked to perfection the past few days. If need be, she'll take this one back to ground zero, take the port replicator out of the picture, and reload the programs she needs. No reason it shouldn't last another 769 days, 8 hours, and 14 minutes. Giving her something else to look forward to.

679 days, 12 hours, 5 minutes, 29 seconds

She's found it -- the home she's always wanted. No nosey neighbors staring through their windows at her blinds always closed (this was at her parents' house), no one stopping her in the elevator to ask if she's still writing, no guard logging in every visitor and every package she receives. A developer bought up everything with plans for a mall, office buildings, high rise apartments, but she refuses to budge. It will take years before all that building gets done. In the meantime she's stocked up on food and water. Unfortunately, she doesn't own this so-called villa. Unfortunately, this is in China.

679 days, 13 hours, 23 minutes, 26 seconds

9745 steps yesterday. She came that close.

680 days, 13 hours, 43 minutes, 31 seconds

Two news stories, two or three days apart: a woman driving with her daughter in the car has ulcerative colitis and passes out from dehydration just as they're nearing a restaurant parking lot. The eleven-year-old manages to grab the wheel and steer the car into a telephone pole instead of oncoming traffic. And, in the second story, a teenager gets a migraine and passes out while driving: her eight-year-old sister grabs the wheel, her seven-year-old brother grabs the emergency brake, the car comes to a halt three feet to the left of a huge, blinding tree. She prints out both stories for her scrapbook. She has ulcerative colitis. She has migraines. She has no children. She's an only child.

680 days, 21 hours, 10 minutes, 57 seconds

It's Daylight Savings time, three weeks early. One hour closer to when Bush will leave office. She's overjoyed at writing this number down. Then she realizes it will only fall back again.

This year her computer made the change seamlessly. The little clock on the bottom showed 1:59 a.m., then 3:00 a.m. She was wondering if she'd updated the proper patch. And she thinks of how many years ago now, when she and her husband both stayed up to watch, and her computer cut in (what they'd now call instant message, she supposes), saying it was about to change the time, and asking her permission. Hell, she remembers computers where she had to manually set the date each day.

3:55 a.m. Her husband wakes in the bed two feet away from her, startled to hear her typing this much, at this hour. "Are you composing?" he asks. Composing. What a strange word. And one he's never used before. Musical. But then it turns dark, as if she's trying to compose herself.

This was supposed to be a quiet keyboard. And it's wireless. Unattached.

680 days, 21 hours, 14 minutes, 34.2 seconds

Sometimes she's slow to notice things. Like that the deck of cards she's playing solitaire with (on the computer, of course), has an astronaut on the back. Considering that she's still fascinated and frightened by the Lisa Nowak story, considering that she's written about this in two poems already, is it still fair to berate herself for wasting time playing solitaire? This is only one deck among many, though. Can't draw it every time.

681 days, 10 hours, 46 minutes, 18.2 seconds

Could it be there were two teachers – two reading specialists in the New York schools relocated to the Atlanta area who are going to court this week? This one's in Long Island. Told colleagues she belonged to a coven. That her husband was in a plane crash. That her son's fingers were caught in a VCR and severed. Taught students about the Salem witch trials. The principal, a born-again Christian, had children sing Jesus Loves All the Children of the World. She was only trying to put that in perspective. Not a word about Harry Potter. And this was only six years ago. This is totally crazy, she thinks. Then she remembers George Bush is also born-again.

685 days, 8 hours, 32 minutes, 42 seconds

Her worst nightmare: she woke up this morning to a computer that wouldn't boot. It sang out its welcome, then stopped in the middle of loading resident programs. So it's turn the button off, turn it on, off, on, off the port replicator, on (it loads one program this time), a call to her husband, off, on, off, on in safe mode (there's an "administrator" user here she never saw before), off, on, off, trying to get into safe mode again she hears a strange beep. And it boots this time. She runs a few programs, then puts it back on the replicator, holds her breath until it boots. A virus scan comes up empty. She runs one-button checkup and sees some registry problems Norton can't fix. But it boots again. She works for awhile, shuts down, takes it down to Starbucks. It's after one o'clock. She works. At three o'clock the after-school crowd comes in, teenagers who sit in the back, younger kids with their mothers. She's never seen it this crowded. The noise is deafening. She plays games.