So the north of me is keeping a word count, 53,187 to be exact, and the north of me likes exact, is concerned about consistency within this manuscript, wants to stop writing and go back and re-read, and insists on looking at the busy calendar ahead with a little mental head shake (dinner at McCraine's with the Kohlers tomorrow night, gig at the fine arts thingy on Friday night with a quick look in on the museum reception after sound check, bigger gig on Saturday night but at least they got…

It’s the moon, alright, up there over Camel’s Hump, but it’s only a picture of the moon, so it never rises or sets and its gravitational pull has no effect on his intracranial tides, doesn’t derange him like the real moon, the moon he grew up with.

When he thinks about the moon, though, he tries to think about the real moon because the paper moon only makes him think about old songs nobody sings anymore.



His painter friend has spent…

This morning, when I came to my desk, late because I cut his hair first in front of the fire with third cups of coffee and the smell of him snaking up from beneath the bottom layer of my clothing, I found in my inbox a poem, from a friend, one who loves me with the Jungian reflected and refracted love of recognition and soul sisterhood, that prickly thing that we mistakenly think will be warm and "friendly."

Anyway, with the grease of his hair on my hands, I clicked on the…

Once upon a December morn drizzling icy rain fell as I napped oh so sore, fitful and worn nestled with cat upon blanket numbly feeling my holiday spirit ebb away to ashes as I dreamt in front of the fire.

Shopping done,money spent with just enough change to cover rent, rude clerks and ungrateful selfish children all chased me demanding just one more piece of silver and soul.

I awoke to the sound of silver bells and a fire fight coming from outside in the pea soup fog hazily…

She was sitting at her beautiful Singer sewing machine, as the sun pierced through the window pane and exposed all those black shiny intricate pieces that made the Singer purr away. I was watching her every move; the stop and go of the Singer was like music to my ears. She took up sewing as a hobby, and she was good at it, but now the hobby had turned into a means of supporting herself and her two girls. Her husband would disappear at times, and she be left all alone to manage as best she…

It's not officially winter in the UK until 1st December and snow already covers the country, all because of that pesky Jet Stream taking a swirl from north to south and bringing us Arctic air.

Yesterday we drove to see my Mum on her 89th birthday, through a landscape of ghostly trees, white with hoar frost and beautiful in the mist, and mercifully got home again without anything falling out of the sky.

In the night the snow came south as forecast and snuffed out…

Kate was quiet too, thinking about the night before, it had been romantically wild and crazy and would have been something to brag about at the pub with the female half of the gang if only she was ten, maybe fifteen years younger. Back in the…

Holding her glass up to the light, she watched as a fleet of little snow flakes danced beyond and appeared to drown in her bourbon. She opened the window. On the ledge lay a pigeon, frozen dead from cold, offering itself up to her now it seemed as the most pitiful of sacrifices.

My Dearest Grandmother, I cried for you today...

I was in a square in downtown Narita, when a concert began. There was a young Japanese girl, the same age as I was when you passed away, who seemed apprehensive as she made her way quietly to a cold metal chair and the…

I know where she is at this time of night.

She's deep in whispers, trading desire in a chat room with her lover. Her fingertips rub the keys lightly between lines of chat, and the lights are off.

Sometimes she lies in bed, murmuring softly into a tiny phone, into its wafer-thin ear, transmitting her longing in a blue arc up to a satellite and back down to the twin phone of her secret other.

In another lifetime, they would have shared a flat in Boston or maybe Newport,…

So I'm in the kitchen, making my own version of Shepherd's Pie with the final remnants of our Thanksgiving turkey. Chop, chop, chop...chopping potatoes, celery, onion, carrots, ginger, a few Granny Smith apples and dried blueberries, just to be different, and I even added a splash of apple vinegar and some leftover coffee, thanks to Cita! I'm wearing a long grey off-the-shoulder sweatshirt, pink wool socks and butter yellow cotton underwear, that's all...comfort clothes that are one part bum…