Ten days into the new year and there is still a little of the “old business” of Christmas left to be done here. My end-of-year letters are in the mail (except for a few that still need that personal thank you note). I’ve put away the candles, the creche, the cornices and centerpiece in the dining room, the Advent wreath, the Limoges nativity story plates that grace the mantel. The tree is still up (it’s artificial) because there just hasn’t been an evening when all three of us can (or want to) work on it, and a small Christmas quilt still hangs above the piano because with my cast I can’t climb the stepladder to retrieve it.

Ten days into the new year and the strangeness of the date still lingers, perhaps more than other years. In my journal I always write out the date in words, as I do for the headers of these pieces. But when I make lists and notes I use the numeric method, and there is something still so odd about 1/9/00.

Y2K is old news now. The morning shows and the service magazines are all doing their habitual “new year -- new you” features. It was Standing Room Only last night at Weight Watchers. I’m into my new box of offering envelopes for church.

I posted resolutions back in September. I called the piece “Dwelling in Possibility” and I outlined seven goals for the coming year. I’d direct you to that essay with a click back, but I won’t for two reasons. First, I’ve eventually got to recode (that is, give new file names and update the links) 1999’s essays now that I have a better organizational system in place. And second, I haven’t made very much progress really on any of them. So I’ll just cut and paste the list, make the modifications I’ve decided on, and start anew here. Thus:

Goals 2000

• Goal 1: Write and send (if feasible) 100 Love Letters (letters of joy and remembrance to someone not expecting to hear from me)
• Goal 2: Complete my family history project
• Goal 3: Develop as a poet
• Goal 4: Finish my Katherine Project, now a historical novel called When This You See, Remember Me
• Goal 5: Reconnect with my "crafting self" and complete two samplers
• Goal 6: Clear my environment of all of my Amazing Clutter (TM)  --  (okay, most of it-- umm, make that a whole lot)
• Goal 7: Become a Lifetime Member of Weight Watchers

The topic last week at Weight Watchers was “rehearsing scenarios.” You were supposed to practice, out loud, saying no to doughnuts at the office, firmly but politely refusing a gooey dessert, choosing broiled fish over fetuccine alfredo when a vendor took you out for lunch.

I’d like to rehearse a conversation. Let’s see -- I’m at my high school reunion next fall. I fall into conversation with someone I haven’t seen since the last reunion -- let’s say it’s Julie.

So,” says Julie. “What are you doing these days?”

“I’m writing full time.”

“Really,” Julie says. “What are you writing?’

“Well,” I answer, “I’m in the final editing stage of a historical novel. I have a chapbook of poems making the rounds. And after Christmas I’m starting a book of essays about central Pennsylvania suburban life.”

OOh! That does feel good!!