Missed yesterday because I was in transit. Sic transit gloria mundi, that is, Gloria gets sick on the subway every Monday, and I get sick of the obstacle course set by airline and customs officials every day. You have to run a horrible gauntlet before you collapse on a plane with a glass of tomato juice, pretending it's a Bloody Mary, and a draft from the window wall, no blanket. Times like that I wish I were rich and famous and could have my own private Lear jet whisk me away. Normally I don't envy anyone, except writers who have just sold their latest offering while I am searching for a new market. It's Christmas Day now and I am surfeited with consumerism, even before I am surfeited with food, I don't shop much at home, preferring catalogue shopping and delivery, and not taking time to browse and be tempted in the stores. So it's a culture shock for me to encounter the WEALTH of EXTRAVAGANT tschotschkes under my family's tree. I guess that in my Other LIfe we were similarly blessed, for our time, but it's still a shock. I'm not going to dwell on this, bur for all those who have lost someone they loved, let me just say that after 40 years, I still miss my husband. Life, I was warned, would never be the same, and it never has been. We go on, we go on. Bless you all.

I'm still caught in a web of inertia. I gather from the TV news that a lot of people have been caught in some sort of paralysis like mine. Surveys re shopping revealed that the percentages were way down on people's completion of their shopping. They all waited until this weekend before Christmas, apparently. Is it because Christmas occurs in the middle of the week and there was a false sense of security in the "extra" time the weekend allowed? Or is there a surfeit of STUFF? Or is everyone lethargic like me? When I referred to my laziness or whatever it is, at an unexpected luncheon I attended, a person I just met but who had been told of my productive month of October spent writing, suggested that it was necessary after that spurt of work for my mind to go fallow, like a field at rest between crops. It's a nice thought but then I read about the productivity of the writer James Patterson and knew I have no excuse at all. I guess I'm due for some hefty new year's resolutions. I do hope they last.

I'm off to Boston for Christmas with my daughter and her family - always a revelation. Although they are blood relatives, they are very different. They're American and there really is a difference between Canadians and Americans. I guess you already know that. Anyway, I'm taking me and you with me. Anon, anon.