Sometimes I wonder what keeps the stars apart, what keeps the moon from crashing into the ocean, what keeps the world rotating. I don't want someone to give me a textbook answer. That I can find for myself. I don't want anyone to give me an answer at all. I just want to wonder about it, to think about all the possibilities for magic there are in the world. Not hocus pocus, alakazam magic; just small occurrences of everyday magic like falling in love and learning something new but unimportant and tasting all the flavors of the rainbow in one drop of snow on the tongue. Does anyone do that anymore? There's a lot of people on earth, but are they in it? Do they see the tiny purple blooms at the side of the road from behind the wheel of whatever vehicle they have to work 50+ hours a week just to afford the monthly payment? Do they see the baby in its mother's arms in the checkout lane at the grocery store and realize how amazing new life is? Do they see the rain and marvel at the length of its journey before it falls on their shoulders? Or are they just going the shortest, fastest route possible to their workplaces, closed off from the world they live in because their lives are filled with orthodontist appointments and court dates and soccer practice and fast food lanes? Sometimes I just want to blow a big whistle and stop all the to-ing and fro-ing. I want people to take off their shoes and walk barefoot in the park grass and stand in the wind and wade in the ocean waves and remember a time not so far distant when we played hopscotch on the sidewalks in front of our houses and knew our neighbor's names and what they were having for dinner and stood on our father's boots while he danced us in circles and loved our third-grade teachers and only watched television on Ed Sullivan night and Disney Sunday Movie night. Sometimes I think I'm the only one alive who still remembers Sing Along With Mitch and having crushes on boys without even thinking about sex and food that doesn't come in boxes or bags marked No Fat, Low Fat, Low Carb, No Carb, Lite, and Virtually Inedible. The stars are closing in. The moon is dipping low. The world is spinning without purpose. Sometimes I think the castaways didn't know how lucky they were to be isolated on Gilligan's Island.

Once upon a time when I was a little girl with my nose in any book of fairy tales I could find, I ran across a story of mermaids. I read about mermen, or selkies, who were greatly desired by human women. The only way to be accepted into the undersea world for a human woman was to stand at the shore and drop seven tears into the ocean before her selkie would take her into the deep with him. Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I found many opportunities to try this, believing that life under the sea would be so much more beautiful than life on shore. But I could never get those seven separate tears to drop, plop plop plop, just so, one by one, as the legend required. Ever since first reading this story I've been fascinated with the whole idea of mermaids. When I die, if reincarnation exists, I want to come back as a mermaid. Then I'd search until I found Amelia Earhart and she and I would explore the ocean valleys together. We would eat lobster every day and drape ourselves with designer seaweed and loot shipwrecks for the finest treasures. She would teach me how to fly through the currents and I would teach her how to race with the dolphins. If only I could get those seven tears to drop just so.

I'm feeling very virtuous today, having walked my dog two miles exactly. I know it's two miles exactly because the streets in Phoenix are in a perfect grid. The streets that are named run east and west and are one mile apart. The streets that are numbered run north and south and are varied, usually only a block or two apart. We walked up the canal park from the Thunderbird overpass to the Greenway overpass and then back. Well, I walked. Justice chased birds and an occasional rabbit (which, I'm happy to report, because of an old leg injury he can't catch), ran in and out of the stream to cool himself off, and generally just had a good time. This is the first time we've done that length and it feels great, although we are both quite stinky, and after his forays through the water my dog smells like pollywogs. Ick!

My husband says if it weren't too weird he'd be jealous of the dog because Justice is such a loving, loveable beast and I dote on him unlike most other humans I know. Why? Because he never smirks at me when I say the wrong thing and he doesn't mind if I don't put my makeup on and he's always ready to go on time. He sits on my feet when they're cold and he comes and nudges my hand with his head when he thinks we need a little cuddle. When I'm dieting he doesn't call up and beg me to please, please try the new Mexican place or have just one more bite of cake. I think people should behave more like dogs. Life would be more pleasant.

This morning I got up and started scrubbing down the kitchen. It's gotten rather snoggy after weeks of neglect. But there I was sweating and groaning like a Marine on an obstacle course, wiping down the cupboard doors, and my husband walks through and says, "You missed a spot." I slapped the rag down, got up off my knees, and said, "Why is it that on your day off, you actually have a day off and when it's my day off, I clean house?" He shrugged. I threw the rag at him. He finished swabbing down the cupboard doors, after which I introduced him to the dustmop and the wetmop while I started preparing a pot of hammocks and beans (his favorite). When he finished the floors I led him outside where the trees are full of grapefruits, oranges, and lemons that need picking and boxing up for friends and family as we can't possibly use them all, and he's now in the kitchen juicing lemons. These things he is doing without complaint, and is even whistling while he works like one of the Seven Dwarves, and so I've concluded that his lack of participation in the finer things of life such as dusting, mopping, scrubbing, and organizing, isn't due to disinterest or even laziness. It's because I never asked. Just like Mom. We kids always helped with housework, but my dad didn't do a thing in the house. His domain was the yards and the garage. My mother, though she didn't work outside the house, would clean until her fingertips bled. I'm just not willing to do that and I don't think I should have to spend my days off cleaning and running errands and doing laundry and grocery shopping, dog walking, bill paying, and whatever else is left to do if I'm still breathing.

Now he's just come in and offered to get us a hotel room in April up north so we can go up and ride the train through the canyon with my cousins who are coming on vacation that week. Maybe his day of chores has enlightened him regarding how much work I do beyond the eight hours that brings a paycheck. I'm practical enough to know that things will never be equal when it comes to housework, but he can at least have a share in the work.

Now I've got to go take a shower and get myself cleaned up. Wonder if he'll share in that too.

Well, it's been a while since I've been here. Had to get priorities straight. I've been writing up a hailstorm, started second novel. Joined Nutrisystem. Working overtime. Running dog down at the canal where he can fly free and loose and splash in the creek and make my truck smell like swamp all the way home. Santa was kind and brought the CD player I wanted, the kind that fits up under the kitchen cupboard and doesn't take up counter space...not that I'm limited there. My kitchen is so huge you can tire yourself out just nukking a bowl of oatmeal. I have an entire cupboard that is empty save for an enormous Mormon-size jar of dill pickles left over from my wedding two and half years ago. Guess if there's a disaster we won't starve for a while, just get pickled. Son is home and safe and ship won't be going out for a few months at least, so, for right now, this minute, today, everything is perfect.