Still cold and windy out there--maybe not the best day to get all of my hair cut off, but nonetheless that's what I did yesterday, and now I jump every time I catch sight of myself in a mirror: who is this person smiling back at me? Not only is my hair really short, but most of the gray, which was in the heavy front locks, has vanished and the brown original has resurfaced from the depths . . . a strange and unnerving time-traveling result. Anyway: it's the new me, at least for a few weeks, and tomorrow I'm taking her to New York.

As expected, a new editing project has dropped into my lap, one more match igniting my hair-on-fire January. But I won't start digging in till next week, and I'm trying not to think any more about next week until it gets here. This coming weekend requires all of my attention. Today I've got to pack up my clothes, my work materials, the gifts I'm bringing; I've got to deal with cat-sitting stuff and trash-pickup stuff and figure out who we're meeting where and when . . . There will be nine of us converging on Manhattan tomorrow night, plus various in-town friends who are also coming to the show. I feel like a circus ringmaster. One with surprisingly short and very brown hair.