740 days, 8 hours, 26 minutes, 50 seconds

Everything's going wrong today. First her alarm clock set wrong. And now the fire. Smoke, rather. Where there's smoke there's fire. She waits. True, she started this with a fake log, and the instructions say not to mix it with wood, but she did this the other day, and it was fine. There's smoke all over now. And the smoke alarm doesn't go off. She tries opening the damper, sits in the kitchen and watches smoke go up the chimney. She closes the damper a bit, lets more air in from the front. Still nothing but smoke. The whole house filling now. And the smoke alarm leaning back on its haunches, dozing. She adds yet another log, a small one with lots of bark on it. She kneels in front of the fire, using the bellows. Faster and faster and faster. Her husband gave her these bellows as a Christmas gift years ago. Then, all of a sudden, everything catches at once, the flames bursting forth like the fires she's seen only in movies. Right at face level. She closes the door, quick. Stands up. Turns down the damper. There's smoke all over the room now, drifting into her study, probably gunking up this computer. She ought to open a window. Two days ago she ignored the smoke alarm.

740 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, 24 seconds

"It's putting itself on display," a friend said the first time she looked through the little glass door of the microwave, watching the food turn. Today she watches a frozen block of onion soup melting into the bowl, at first nothing, then slowly sinking in, crookedly, leaning to one edge, the cheese holding its own at the top. Hungry, she munches a cookie while she's watching. Backwards, she knows. And there are croutons she didn't expect in there.

741 days, 1 hour, 50 minutes, 12.8 seconds

and 3753 steps, not counting half a dozen times last night when she got up for a drink, or to go to the bathroom. She might be pouring sugar again. Trying to take it slow, one step at a time, and not panic. One of her teaching commitments canceled for this spring at least. She breathes easier. Lunch with Paul, then up to the Lake George Arts Council to let them see some photos. A possible show. A probable disappointment. No time to build a fire today. She gets up, walks over to turn up the furnace. 3794 steps. If only passing the next two years of Bush could be this methodical.

741 days, 21 hours, 42 minutes, 50 seconds

One more thing she did today – she set up her first pedometer. Walk 7000 steps a day and you will lose weight, Weight Watchers claims. She walks from room to room, trying to up the count. She thinks of all those nights pacing her parents' living room. But she was anorexic then anyway.

741 days, 22 hours, 12 minutes, 10 seconds

In thinking over the little she accomplished today, does it help to say she caught another mouse (the fourth since yesterday)? That she used the treadmill? That she built a fire and kept it going all day? This last is not inconsequential – when she rented, nearly 25 years ago, she spent a full night trying to get a twig to burn. Right around dinnertime, the woodstove and the smoke alarm almost came to blows. And of course her blood's through the roof again. She wants to compare that to smoke going up the chimney. The newly rebuilt chimney. The old blood. And a useless comparison.

742 days, 1 hour, 29 minutes, 1.2 seconds

She's asked students to write about New Year's resolutions, and expects a lot of poems on dieting at tomorrow's class. Meanwhile, in the headlines, she reads about two pigs so fat they can't fit in the slaughterhouse truck, have to be killed and butchered in their pens. An obese woman in South Africa was stuck in a cave for nearly twelve hours, trapping twenty-three others in front of her, including asthmatic children and a diabetic. And the FDA has just granted Pfizer approval on a drug for obese dogs. She used to own stock in Pfizer.

744 days, 1 hour, 39 minutes, 49 seconds

Even along the Thruway, green grass alternates with brown. She thinks about plants and animals forced from their natural habitats. This weather's played hell with her head the past few days. Up above Woodstock she stops for lunch, and still leaves her jacket in the car. She gets off on 787 and heads toward Troy, then takes Route 40 home, through small towns and farm roads. She looks up and sees the start of a rainbow. Then she notices puddles and what must have been a wet road. A few sprinkles on her windshield. This cloud- and sun-filled dusk is the best light for rainbows, she remembers. Miles later, still a half hour from home, she sees the start of a second rainbow. The start of a promise, most likely.

744 days, 12 hours, 56 minutes, 2 seconds

She wakes at 10:30 to have her husband tell her it's 65 degrees out. Already they've broken the record for today. By the time she checks her email and dresses it's 68. Another blizzard in Colorado. A woman there is selling snow on Ebay. She recalls once, when she was sick, her mother filling an old roasting pan with snow and bringing it inside for her. She remembers once building a fort with some neighbor kids she can't remember the names of, and lobbing snowballs at other kids. Her husband, the second month she knew him, went to her house upstate right before Thanksgiving. There was not a lot of snow, but enough for a snowball, which he threw at her. She didn't know what hit her. And this year there hasn't even been snow up there, just trash dumped in her yard. Still 68 degrees. And she's out of here.

746 days, 8 hours, 49 minutes, 43 seconds

Ring out the old, ring in the new. Fraternal twins in Boston born three minutes yet a year apart. The girl born first, but most likely the boy will be stronger (memories of her six-weeks-younger cousin here – how they played in the abandoned schoolyard, how he smiled). Thoughts of the Bush twins. The competition between all twins. Between all siblings. Between son and father. Some of the most powerful men she's known have sons that are losers.

746 days, 8 hours, 51 minutes, 9 seconds

The clock's still counting down. She thought if she didn't pay attention for a few days, it might go away, just like back in her headache days – if she was focused enough on other things the pain would vanish. The Americans dead in Iraq is up to 3000, a 96 year-old uncle dead in Rhode Island. Dead before the year changed hands, buried after it. Ring out the old … Only her ears ring.

750 Days, 8 Hours, 24 Minutes, 43 Seconds

At Edgar's there are balloons on the backs of chairs. Infants are entranced by them. A passing waitress gets caught up in the string. She's not the one in the party hat. Her Happy New Year tiara is on again off again. Starting the party a little early, but what the hell. Everyone wants the year to end.

750 Days, 11 Hours, 13 Minutes, 37 Seconds

He's on oxygen even at home now. He stopped walking five miles on the Boardwalk each morning over five years ago. No more walking stairs. She recalls, for as long as she can remember, things to go up in the attic piled on the sides of the lower stairs until one of the family was headed up. Her husband screeching about books piled up on the stairs in her country house. See, she told him last time they saw her father, this is what I was taught to do. But he's had the attic cleaned out for years now, nothing much left. And things he can no longer use are no longer stored up there. He can't quite understand why she doesn't want them, so he asks again.

750 Days, 11 Hours, 21 Minutes, 8.5 Seconds

This is her father's clutter. She thinks of four years ago, when he was in the hospital, how it took her over two hours to find two checkbooks. Papers piled up on the twin beds pushed together in his study that used to be her room. More on the desk and even more on the dining room table. The day after he turned 90 he didn't want to meet them for lunch because he still had to work on his taxes. No more extensions left. And the day before he went in the hospital this last time he was so proud that the clutter, on the beds at least, had gotten almost manageable. A week in Shore Memorial and it's all piled up again. Papers slipping through the crack between those two beds. Even if she'd wanted to stay in that house there would be no room for her. But this last time it took her less than ten minutes to find his checkbook.

750 Days, 11 Hours, 49 Minutes, 9 Seconds

The last day of the year. Were this a mayoral election year, they'd be preparing City Hall Park for tomorrow's inauguration. But Bloomberg has two more years left. The same as Bush, she wants to say. But the presidency doesn't change until January 20th. Twenty days from now, she might well give up her New Years resolutions to keep her desk neat and develop better eating habits. Hours before leaving office, Clinton pardoned 140 prisoners, commuting the sentences of another 36. Some were 70s radicals, but none were actual murders. The count of the dead in Iraq is now greater than those killed on 9/11. And it's another 2 years of Bush, not just another 21 days. Her next move should be to turn away from this computer, pick up a stack of papers, and at least look them over.

751 Days, 21 Hours, 22 Minutes, 19 Seconds

She's back in New York. Saddam's dead. At the Waldorf Astoria the 52nd Annual Debutante Ball took place just a few hours ago. Ashley Bush was among them. Another woman is making her debut for the fourth time. New York's on high terror alert. This New Years, they say, don't try to go near Times Square with a large pocketbook. She was only at Times Square for New Years once, when she was twelve years old, with her parents. But she jammed her huge pocketbook with a notebook battery, two books, and other essentials for the Christmas plane trip, coming and going, so now her neck's stiff. And she didn't even turn on the computer. A lot of catching up to do. CBS has decided not to televise the execution. Twelve years ago friends had a fight at a New Years party and he walked out, headed for Times Square, but couldn't get anywhere near it. They married anyway. She was at a friend's wedding that same day, in Chicago. He's dead now also. Just how many times can one be a debutante?

756 Days, 1 Hour, 10 Minutes, 45 Seconds

To everyone in our armed forces stationed overseas, get home safe. Know that we care about you. These words from the football broadcaster. And at that very minute a friend calls to let them know she got home safe: 62 miles in just over an hour, unheard of time for her. It's the third quarter and the Jets just kicked a field goal, the first score of the game. The New Jersey Jets, her husband says. Don't call them New Yorkers. He always roots for whoever's opposing them. Person after person wished her a safe trip home. The fourth quarter starts with a Miami touchdown. The announcer predicts a lot of action this quarter, but it's ten o'clock, so they turn Eyewitness News on.

756 Days, 1 Hour, 16 Minutes, 19 Seconds

Last year, when they drove to Houston, it was his prescription they were waiting for. Leaving a day later than planned, then another two hours, three hours, four hours. Hanging around for the pharmacist who, for all they knew, might have walked out. This was at Duane Reade, the only place in her building now, the closest non-chain pharmacy eight blocks away. The whole world gone to chains – restaurants, video stores, The Gap, K-Mart, Eddie Bauer, Toys R Us. He hates it.

756 Days, 1 Hour, 24 Minutes, 20.3 Seconds

Midrin. That's the drug she used to take for pain those days when Tylenol didn't work. A half-step before reaching for Percocet. And she remembers one Christmas years ago when there was a small drugstore in her building. The day before she left she brought the prescription in for refill, and they ran out. Her absolute state of desperation, she could not spend the holidays with his family and not have these security pills along. They ended up giving her brand rather than generic, he forking up the difference out of pocket. Back in those days she'd have sold her soul.

756 Days, 1 Hour, 32 Minutes, 29 Seconds

She takes Tylenol for the first time since she's been here. The end of Christmas Day. For the most part it's been a good day. Her husband and his brother talking about how much calmer it is in their father's absence. The toddler a delight. They call the other brother. Football on in the background. They call his father. They call her father. Just the four of them in the house now. He massages her head a bit (as he did their first Christmas here, twenty years ago). She massages his stiff shoulder. She eats cookies, pie, homemade praline ice cream, more cookies. This is probably sugar shock. One more day to go. She opens the Tylenol bottle in her purse and sees that if she takes two now there will only be two left. The old panic sets in.

757 Days, 10 Hours, 3 Minutes, 32 Seconds

Back here again, the broadcaster says as the game comes back after the commercial break. Second quarter, tie game, 14/14. When she was 14 she was relatively happy. The first half of the year, at least. This is at his brother's house. Over half the visit is over. It's the second half that's always been hard for her. Two days, four hours, one minute, and counting. But they'll board before that.