I did not want to wake up this morning. The alarm was a shock: I could easily have stayed in bed another hour, maybe more. I don't know why I'm so sleepy these days; I suppose it's a continuing body reaction to general stress and sadness, but my bed seems like the nicest place on earth.

However, I did my duty. I got up and made coffee and let the cat out, and now here I sit, slowly beginning to ungroggify.

It's Friday: recycling day, errand-running day, poetry-talk-with-Teresa-and-Jeannie day, going-out-to-the-new-barbecue-place-with-our-neighbor day . . . certainly plenty of things I am glad to be awake for. My car is not one of those bright spots, however. Yesterday I paid yet another hefty repair bill--this time, for a wheel bearing--and afterward John at the garage solemnly wished me happy holidays and said he hoped he would not be seeing me again soon. You and me both, pal. Cheaper than a new car, cheaper than a new car. But the mantra doesn't help much, especially now that T's pickup has also entered repair hell. We are in the grip of two aging vehicles, neither of which we can afford to replace. It's not a soothing situation.

Anyway, for the moment, my car has limped back onto the road. So this morning she and I will venture out to do some mild Christmas shopping, and then I will talk about poems with my friends. On paper it sounds like an undemanding day.

Still, last night, when I went out to write with friends, I suddenly got overloaded, suddenly had the feeling that I really just ought to go home. That's been happening to me lately, in a variety of friendly situations--again, a normal reaction, though I wish it wouldn't. I know that I'm still sad. I feel dull in public because I'm still sad. It's boring for everyone else to keep being around someone who is sad about the death of a person they didn't know, whose relationship to me doesn't have a clear label: not like the death of a direct family member . . . everyone would understand that.

But I did see an excellent happy movie on Wednesday! It's not like I'm straight-up miserable. Just melancholy, in a fitful way. I'm living alongside, sometimes inside, the drip of slow grief. There's nothing wrong with sadness, no shame in saying What is this new world, without you?