516 days, 23 hours, 37 minutes 34 seconds

The world's starting to become a better place again. She can concentrate on solitaire.

518 days, 0 hours, 8 minutes 46 seconds

Bob Leroy Head of Maquoketa, Iowa threw out the first pitch at the Portland Beavers baseball game Saturday, the result of a months-long promotion for Bob L. Heads around the nation. His motto: No matter what the score, I am always a Head. He also said he's been pitching hay and pitching manure and thought he could pitch a ball. The first 2000 fans were given free bobble head dolls of him. The Beavers, playing Las Vegas, staged a late inning rally which left fans nodding in approval. So the beavers won.

Her mop was adjusted today. It still feels more like a dead beaver.

518 days, 15 hours, 49 minutes 18 seconds

Ben bobs in front of the books she's written. All head and no heart.

518 days, 16 hours, 18 minutes 55 seconds

Then there was the prism they tried to put in her glasses once. It was a disaster. She bounced as she walked. Her head bobbed. Ben still bobs, sitting on the shelf with her books now.

518 days, 16 hours, 41 minutes 58 seconds

Soon it will be cold enough to bob for apples, he tells her, trying to cheer her up about being in the city in August. The first time since he’s known her. Yet another horrid memory – Seventh grade? Eighth grade? Her parents decided she was too old for a birthday party so threw a Halloween party instead. Everything took place in the garage they cleaned out for her. They had to bob for apples. The only girl who made it into the house was someone whose costume tore. She was crying. There were no boys. She was small for her age. She doesn’t think she’d ever heard the term migrant worker, but her teacher was all excited about Laos, the newest country to gain independence. It was even on the Safety test.

518 days, 16 hours, 51 minutes 37 seconds

Maybe it was a year or two after they married. Things are starting to run together here.

519 days, 1 hours, 37 minutes 18 seconds

The clock fell on her foot today. The ten-ton, hand-crafted, steel Wonder Woman, Wizard of Oz music box clock. At first she thought it broke two toes. It didn't matter. She'd been reaching for the computer. At least she didn't drop the computer. They were meeting a friend for brunch. Same place as last week. Different friend. Even now she has friends. She shoves the dead animal on her head, doesn't have time to cover the rash, and limps off. Wonder Woman.

519 days, 2 hours, 30 minutes 18 seconds

Hamster Brain. It was their favorite commercial years ago. The sister calls her brother a hamster brain (or does the brother call the sister that?) while the mother soaks blissfully behind the closed bathroom door in Calgon Bath Oil Beads. And she made up a song for him:

Employee of the Month
Employee of the Year
Hi Ho Delario
The Hamster Brain is here.

He was Employee of the Month, then tied for Employee of the Year. It was before they married. They went to Tavern on the Green to celebrate. And he was given a desk clock with a little plaque which sits above her computer.

519 days, 3 hours, 26 minutes 0.2 seconds

U.S. paid $1 million to ship two 19-cent washers. Anxious to get soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan all the tools they needed, they let twin sisters, South Carolina women in their forties, dupe them. Luxury cars, boats, jewelry, vacations. One sister committed suicide in her beach house.

She knows what it's like in the Deep South. Jerry Falwell always on the lookout. Bob Jones University in Greenville. It was the first place she taught Poets in the Schools, nearly forty years ago, when there were separate Black and White teachers' lounges and the kids were paddled. Then she moved on to Oramgeburg. Warned not to walk the road at night.

Lock washers place tension against a nut after tightening, to help prevent the nut from loosening. She thinks of the single washer caught in her bra two months ago, how it had been just one more tool to keep her head straight, how a few days later she retrieved it. Her only souvenir. She keeps it with the marble-brains he gave her.

521 days, 4 hours, 44 minutes 23 seconds

Her parents would have been delighted had she gone to college. Any college.

521 days, 10 hours, 51 minutes 10.6 seconds

You're supposed to be a wreck, he tells her. This is what chemo does. My favorite wreck, he calls her. My Beautiful Laundrette, she thinks but doesn't say. She thinks of that 1,500 pound wrecking ball that broke free in Pennsylvania last week, rolling downhill, smashing cars, landing in the trunk of a Taurus, right near Allegheny College.

522 days, 9 hours, 29 minutes 53 seconds

She thinks of St. Rudy's first inauguration, eight-year-old Andrew up there on the podium, hamming it up for the cameras. That boy ought to be spanked, a friend said. Father and son no longer speak. His daughter's campaigning for Obama. Both children loyal to their mother. He announced his divorce to the media before he told his wife. And this man wants to be president. Republican. Family values. Leave my family out of this, he tells a woman in New Hampshire.

And don't we all wish we could leave our families out? Her father getting all the details confused. A stomach tumor. Five hours at the doctor every day. Calling every other night to see what the doctor said, sometimes forgetting he just spoke to her. Sheer promotion for the MCI friends and family network. Whoever is left now that he's nearly 91. She's his only daughter.

And his father 93, planning the birthday party. Knowing something's going on, but not what. Ready to announce whatever it is to the world, highlight of the evening. She'd almost prefer he tell them they're getting divorced.

522 days, 10 hours, 35 minutes 26 seconds

When he turned 50, she threw him a surprise party that's remained one of the high points of their life together. Now that he's turning 65, this is what her body does to him.

522 days, 23 hours, 56minutes 8.1 seconds

Sign of hope at Utah mine. Geophones picking up a series of noises over five minutes. Another falling rock? An animal? A miner struggling to breathe? If one of her loved ones were down there, nine-tenths dead, with little chance of a normal life again, what would she really be hoping for?

523 days, 11 hours, 27minutes 34 seconds

Penny Whistle Toys is, she thinks, open again. It had been closed by the court over a month ago, a large red and yellow sign on the window saying don't worry, kids, we'll be back. But this is what we teach the kids she doesn't have.

When she first moved in with him one of his nieces and one great nephew were still young enough that they always looked at toys for Christmas, and this was the best store around. And the most expensive. But he hated chain toy stores as much as he hated chain restaurants (except for the Toys 'R Us near Times Square with its indoor Ferris wheel that he never got to go on). That will be closing soon. Now there are other small expensive shops on the upper West side and they know about one in the village. Now that niece has two children of her own. That's how long it's been.

Meanwhile, Mattel is recalling nearly 19 million toys built in China because they didn't use the paint they were paid to use and there's possible lead here. All over suburbia mothers are digging through toy chests, checking serial numbers, throwing out toys in large red plastic Neiman Marcus bags that can't be seen through. Day care centers are replacing everything. Children in day care are being checked for lead. Children out of day care are throwing tantrums. Or she would have been, at least. Then again, even her Barbies probably weren't Mattel.

She thinks of the windows at Penny Whistle after 9/11 – some of the best in town. For Valentines Day, a red heart with stuffed Dalmatians inside and surrounding it. A white USA plane, American flag on its wing, seeming to fly into a building when we first attacked Iraq. She has the pictures to prove it. Don't worry kids, we'll be back.

523 days, 11 hours, 27minutes 34 seconds

She's angry. Of course she's angry. If Bush had done one interesting thing instead of just bidding goodbye to Karl Rove and hanging on to Gonzalez; if a straw poll in Iowa had included at least one candidate she recognizes; if Bloomberg weren't going round and round and round on his pay to drive in Manhattan scheme; if the Democrats could just get down to five or six candidates in five or six debates a week, this blog might not be so damn personal. Still, she combs the news every day. Maybe it's just her lack of energy. And not being able to comb her hair.

523 days, 12 hours, 11minutes 41.6 seconds

She dropped her camera yesterday. But she managed to take over 40 pictures, some of them butts in the flower beds, one butt in a plastic glove. She wasn't even sure she'd be able to press the shutter. She had an hour before the doctor. What was she supposed to do, walk around in the heat responding to just the heat? Anyway, the camera's okay. With all this is costing her above and beyond insurance, and in another $2000-$3000: say it's for the latest technology.

523 days, 12 hours, 23 minutes 21 seconds

Bon Pain again today. But then she expected this. She was here just nine days ago helping a friend pick out a Toshiba from J&R. Sleek, 17 inch screen, no needless trial programs loading, no need to connect to the Internet just to set it up. This is the machine she should've bought herself. This is the place she should have bought it. Needless/needles. And a glass of water. She hasn't even had water yet today.

Her face is dried from all the creams last night. Her fingernails pick up crud every time she touches it. She doesn't even want to go near a computer, so she picks at scabs.

524 days, 10 hours, 45 minutes 50 seconds

There was so much more to write yesterday. But She needed Percocet for headache, before the headache got too bad. And she needed water to take the Percocet. And of course the water was on her left side and of course her hand can't feel when it's touching something and of course the water spilled all over the left side of the keyboard. She dried it off with her T-shirt. The nurse dried off the water under the computer with a towel. So it's working and then not working, working then coming up with crazy characters, menus she hasn't pressed. She was able to surf the Internet using just the mouse. She brought it home, called 4G data, grabbed a cab down there at seven o'clock at night (they're open until 10 plus weekends). The keyboard shorted out, he said. They ordered a new keyboard. Maybe they can get this done under warranty. If not how much is this going to cost? $300? $400? The cost of two or three dinners or one medication. She could have bought the Rings of Saturn paperweight, plus the one for a Christmas gift. But she'll buy those anyway. And at least the Percocet worked.

525 days, 10 hours, 26 minutes, 30 seconds

One doctor at 10:30, an emergency, who doesn't see her until 11:40, making her late for her noon drip, and the nurse has to leave on time tonight, and the doctor's on vacation again this week.

A friend she seldom talks with on the phone thinks the purpose of waits is to be sure you understand who's in control here. She tells him about her student and how much that suddenly means to her. She tells him of her last drip. And he says he sees another Ratner anthology in the works.