This morning I took Daphne out and she ran around like crazy and then vomited up her breakfast and ate it, and David came downstairs and told me he is sick and would like me to take him to the doctor, and both of the boys had upset stomachs after breakfast and we were late to school. After I dropped off John I drove up the parkway to the vet, where I had to get Daphne her heartworm pill and some topical tick and flea treatment, and on the way, of course, I looked up at the trees, which are totally bare now—winter-time trees, pretty in their brown and skeletal way, but necessarily suggestive of a certain way of being, a certain mood, a certain pain, even, in my fingers and toes. I remembered only three weeks ago, when I drove up the highway and looked up at the same trees and saw them covered with red and gold leaves hanging on by little vegetal threads, and thought to myself, myself being, apparently, a mournful, desolate soul, how beautiful the leaves were, but how all this beauty would soon be gone, and winter, which I dread, would be upon us. This morning I was able to occupy both times, the time of beauty and dread, three weeks ago, and then this morning, when the sun shone on the bare curling branches. I thought, I didn’t want it to happen, but it happened anyway. Oh, well.

Maybe a year ago, I felt so much love for my husband that I thought the sentence, “I must get a tattoo to commemorate my love for him.” Obviously, the flacks at the tattoo lobby have been doing their work. I accept that at least half of my thoughts have been planted by people with a commercial interest in me. I am grateful for this, because otherwise I would spend half of my time not thinking anything at all.

Oh, I don’t mean it. Do I? Lately I have instituted a new program of not buying things, so that we can pay for the kitchen, which is going to be, of course, more expensive than we thought. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you about the progress of our renovation, a subject only slightly less deadly than the topic Why I’m Late to This Thing I’m Late to. [And slightly more deadly than The Dream I Had Last Night That I Don't Understand (But You Will, Because It's Transparent).] I’m not doing anything drastic, of course. The program is just that, when I think, Should I buy this thing? I then think, No, I’m not buying anything. Then sometimes I don’t buy the thing.

I’m not crazy, like some people.

Anyway, I passed some time thinking about tattoos. I wanted a classy tattoo. I wanted an upper-middle-class tattoo, a tattoo that would signify taste and knowledge at the same time it communicated undying love for another upper-middle-class person. Also, I wanted a tattoo that would look nice as my body deteriorates.