639 days, 11 hours, 43 minutes, 29.6 seconds

Her brother-in-law's modular home arrived in Mississippi two days ago. To be erected on his Katrina-leveled lot. 100,000 pounds of house. $3.50 a pound that it ends up costing. And how much does steak cost these days? How much for those gourmet vegetable dishes she buys at Zabars? Every time her blood's high they vow to eat at home more.

641 days, 9 hours, 55 minutes, 19.3 seconds

Meeting a friend for lunch, she thinks of sugar-free chocolates at Godiva. She recalls, years ago, dieting, she stopped in Fanny Farmer at the mall and bought sugar-free. Just as many calories as the others, the clerk told her. So why the hell make them? Why bother? Callous. Uppity. It's as if she brought all this on herself.

641 days, 12 hours, 11 minutes, 19 seconds

Those poor girls. Three days ago she explained to a friend that she doesn't like to teach high school or college because she can't get away from herself as a teenager. Not wanting to help kids as she needed help, but herself as still the outcast, students as tormentors. Now all she can do is feel sorry for those girls on the Rutgers basketball team. They thought they were winners. Then along came Don Imus.Then along came the Governor. Actually, the Governor never got there.

641 days, 12 hours, 14 minutes, 32.6 seconds

Corzine's crash happened on Thursday, while she was in Sacramento giving two readings. California. Always her refuge.

641 days, 12 hours, 27 minutes, 20.5 seconds

Ruffles have ridges. Politicians have privileges. And if the governor of New Jersey wants to sit in the front seat of the Suburban while his State Trooper driver goes 91 miles an hour, and he doesn't want the constraint of the seatbelt, that's his choice. Eleven broken ribs. On a ventilator. On morphine. Corzine was the only one without a seatbelt. The only one in hospital. In intensive care, unable to breathe on his own. But that's because of pain, mostly. No brain damage, no paralysis. He had a right to speed. He had to get to Camden. He just wanted to get out of Atlantic City. Her father, on a similar ventilator three years ago, just wanted to stay there.

642 days, 4 hours, 11 minutes, 59 seconds

An article from last year's news says Tony Blair spent over $3000 of the government's money on makeup during his first six years in office. And Marcia Clark claims she lost the Simpson case because she couldn't afford the fancy tv wardrobe. Six years ago, when Hillary won the senate race, she spoke of six black pants suits. But now, running for president, she seems to have given up on black.

642 days, 4 hours, 27 minutes, 49 seconds

7:23 in Manhattan. Most of the women she knows are probably retouching their lipstick before or after dinner. (She fell today). The women she's closest to wear soft shades. Barely visible on their lips. Not like the magenta she wore in high school. She was a sorority pledge, she had to wear it. (She fell this afternoon crossing Columbus Ave.). Even on her wedding day she never thought of makeup. Though she owes her life to Botox. Not for wrinkles, for migraine. All those vain women have their uses. And, she admits, she's put on light powder for photographs. Never lipstick. Never eye shadow to weigh down already-tired eyes. And no plucked eyebrows. (She fell tonight just after picking up clothes from the cleaners).

642 days, 9 hours, 46 minutes, 25 seconds

Two nosebleeds in two days. She doesn't have time for this. But she picks at her nose when she's nervous, the way her mother smoked or Connie sucks on straws. Smoking was bad for her husband's health as well. Better than these nosebleeds, she supposes, when she's already slightly anemic. Blood on the keyboard now.

642 days, 23 hours, 5 minutes, 17 seconds

642 – It's an address. Or a zip code. An area code? Actually it's the first three digits of her summer phone number. Numbers no one can complete unless she wants to talk to them. We're focusing on vacations here. Houses with lawns and hammocks and barns. 642, the numbers humming like insects bedded down for the night, while frogs coak from one side of the road to the other and she lies in total darkness on the screened-in porch. 642. No peace last summer. And here she'd been waiting for this day, planning for it, stocking up on words as if they were earthquake provisions.

642 days, 23 hours, 55 minutes, 40 seconds

Headached, jetlagged, coming down with a cold – or maybe all three, she tries the Bush Cheney game to regain focus. Scores so low it's ridiculous, the head right in perfect position then she doesn't have strength to shoot. The two of them could get away with torture when she's in this state. And how many senators are there now campaigning every weekend? Iowa, New Hampshire, New Jersey... George and Laura, meanwhile, visited Virginia Tech today, thirty-three dead, others critical, the worst shooting in American history. One freshman, from New Jersey, was on an ROTC scholarship.

643 days, 9 hours, 1 minutes, 26 seconds

Once upon a time, worried about repacking her computer, she left her pocketbook back at Security. Her father-in-law spotted it and tried to get it for her, but they wouldn't hand it over. Not even the same name.

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.