585 days, 23 hours, 52 minutes, 17.8 seconds

A colander, she thinks, never certain if that o is long or short. The silver pot for draining pasta. All the holes for water to run out. Drianing vegetables, but she never cooks fresh vegetable and never thinks to wash salad. Years ago she gave her friend a beautifully crafted pottery colander as a gift, then found a similar one for herself at a yard sale. Better than aluminum. Better than plastic. It sits centered on her table, sometimes holding fruit. But none so polished as this one. Probably glows in the dark. 201 very precise holes, the nurse explains, testing her head for the size of it. And she thinks of children growing up in the 50s, glued to the tv, Vic Morrow starring in Combat, handsome Vic Morrow, years before Dr. Kildare. One of tv's good guys. Troops of children prowling the backyards after school, colanders upside down over their pony tails.

586 days, 17 hours, 22 minutes, 34.3 seconds

They use a scissors to pin the top of her gown together. Cut throat, cut rate, the cutting edge. Don't move, a man tells a woman in every crime drama she can think of at the moment. She watched them all, then turned to the medical dramas, closing her eyes or running from the room at each procedure. We can't let this woman die, the doctor says as the credits roll on the afternoon soap her friend scripted. No, he says, he didn't write that. His own words on the cutting room floor. In the holding cell next door, they're calling ouot directions for some of the helmet holes. Sounds like they're playing bingo. Or Russian roulette.

586 days, 18 hours, 25 minutes, 28.7 seconds

She's following the stars. He's following her.

586 days, 18 hours, 34 minutes, 18 seconds

Oh, he says. Ronald Reagan.

586 days, 23 hours, 19 minutes, 29 seconds

She'd wanted a helmet, like the space men wear. To keep her cool all summer. To save her from darting from one airconditioned shop to another, making herself sick. To save her marriage. She bargained, cajoled, and pleaded. But she never imagined it permanent, never feared mad physicists drilling into her scalp like this.

587 days, 0 hours, 20 minutes, 26 seconds

Find Waldo. Whale watch. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Bush watch. They say it was just a $50 Timex. They say it was in his pocket. And she's still upset she lost Cinderella.

587 days, 4 hours, 39 minutes, 21 seconds

In Albania, President Bush is mistaken for a rock star. He stops to greet the crowd in a tiny town, emerging from the trees near where his car's parked. They call his name, they reach out to shake hands with him (though you can see this every night on Jay Leno, people crowding the stage as the star prances on). Bush moves further into the crowd. Leaves are left behind. Monkey see, monkey do. People grab his arms. One woman plants a kiss on his cheek, another ruffles his hair. People wave little American flags. He climbs up on the running-board of his limo. He blows kisses just like Marilyn Monroe did. Suddenly his watch is gone from his wrist. Men in suits close in around him. He's lost track of time. His hands keeps shaking. Follow the stars.

587 days, 8 hours, 59 minutes, 4.3 seconds

Not just gamma knife, Leksell gamma knife. Invented by a neurosurgeon in Sweden forty years ago. She was in Sweden three years ago, the wedding of her husband's friend's daughter. His closest friend. Dead now.

587 days, 9 hours, 29 minutes, 5 seconds

Follow the stars, the receptionist tells them. Go in the Children's Hospital entrance, follow the beige and brown stars set into the floor, past the gift shop, past the live performance area and snack bar, past the outdoor garden. They get larger and more colorful as they approach the elevator, then the elevator itself with bright red, blue, and yellow stars, leading directly to the gamma knife. God's ray gun.Glow, little glow worm, glow. Glimmer, glimmer, dimmer, shimmer. And she thinks of her sophomore year in high school, a boy running for student council president that she had a crush on. She'd given him her sorority key for good luck, but it wasn't good enough. Keep looking at the stars, kid, he told her, slipping it over her head in the hall back by the lockers. Four months later she dropped out of school.

589 days, 14 hours, 37 minutes, 49 seconds

Sheila Ballantyne, 70. Larry Leon Hamlin, 58. Harvey R. Colten, 68. Steven Billiard Jr., 42. Charles Maynes, 68. Samuel A. Garrison, 65. Jörg Immendorff, 61. Two months ago, she'd look at the New York Times obituaries and notice all the people who died in their nineties.

591 days, 3 hours, 48 minutes, 5.8 seconds

Boy, it's good to see this guy back, her husband says, sprawling on the downstairs couch, the Yankees game on tv . This guy is Bobby Murcer, former player, now broadcaster.

591 days, 9 hours, 9 minutes, 18 seconds

She blow-dries her hair. Not wanting to get sick again. And thinks again of Tony Blair spending over $3000 on makeup. In recent news, a principal is in trouble over dragging a high school boy to a barber shop. A straight-A student is expelled from 8th grade because of her hair color. And a four-year-old is banned from pre-school because of pink hair. She thinks how not much has changed in the past fifty years, not really. Except maybe that parents go to bat for their kids. In their first correspondence in the three weeks she's been sick, her father reiterates that he wants a plain pine coffin, nothing fancy. He also might have paid for the funeral in advance, but he can't remember.

591 days, 9 hours, 32 minutes, 54 seconds

No more tears, no more tangles, no more stitches, no more dried blood. Looking in the third drugstore, she comes up with L'oréal Kids extra gentle shampoo – no knots! More conditioning! With a burst of watermelon. For thick, curly, or wavy hair. She'd been hoping for Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo, but God knows if they even make that these days. Watermelon, evident the moment she opens the cap, she decides is enough of a reminder.

591 days, 15 hours, 9 minutes, 37 seconds

A stitch in time saves nine. She wakes up confident all the pain's from the stitches. Coming out today. And not stitches, staples. She probably shouldn't have fought so hard all her life to be writer, not woman. All her teenage angst catching up with her. And her mother dead, and her father dying. No one else to blame. Unless you count Bush, of course.

592 days, 14 hours, 24 minutes, 37 seconds

Yesterday was the the anniversary of D-Day. June 6, 1944. The day world allied forces invaded Europe and stormed the beaches of Normandy. Her husband reminded her yesterday. She meant to ewrite about it yesterday. Yesterday she didn't even go so far as to open a newspaper. Yesterday it was as if there was no larger world around her. Just her own pain.

593 days, 9 hours, 36 minutes, 5 seconds

Percocet in the middle of the night, but she woke up feeling good enough to get some work done. A nap then, heading out for lunch, she decides to wear the shoes with a slight lift, making her an inch or two taller. Keeping her back straight. One of the orthotics has come loose again, a small patch put on last fall to see how well it worked, worked, but she never took it back for a more permanent attachment. Every year around May or June, right before she leaves for the summer, her orthotics seem to wear out. today she just attaches it again with double-sided tape she bought to mount photographs. Not planning to walk very far. Holding her head up.

594 days, 1 hours, 53 minutes, 42 seconds

Dr. Susan Penullo. One of the few doctors she's had who isn't Jewish. And she can't help thinking about Joseph Perilla, family-owned tours to Italy since 1945. They used to advertise on CBS radio all the time, she'd hear their syrupy ads before she started with audio books. Her husband took her to Italy the year she turned 50. No tour. No group. Nobody telling her what she has to do and see. No compromising her intelligence. The ad said give them a call. Come talk to Pappy.

594 days, 12 hours, 51 minutes, 1.3 seconds

Staple? Dried blood? Her imagination? Only her hairdresser knows for sure. Her grandmother's hand-mirror is upstate. Just her luck, she can't see herself. Luckily, she can't see herself.

595 days, 7 hours, 45 minutes, 8.1 seconds

She thinks of the Staples Easy Button. She thinks of Staples, by far her favorite store. Thinks of the first Staples she saw, on Sixth Ave., a block up from the library. Their huge signs about discount office prices. And how they opened more stores, and had just about everything in stock. Then she thinks of his brother, in the office supply business in Houston, and how chains such as Staples were killing him. His brother doesn't know about the cancer yet. Neither of his brothers knows.

595 days, 9 hours, 42 minutes, 13 seconds

You can't go home again, Tom Wolfe wrote. Oh, but she does go home. Despite walking hospital corridors, the two block walk to the coffee shop becomes unmanageable. She orders the wrong lunch. She stayed an extra day to get diabetes under control, and now she's not sure. It seems as if every doctor's on vacation. She wakes up with her head pounding, or the staples pounding, tight, digging in. And everyone so happy that she's home.