Today is the two-year anniversary of my last post to this blog: February 4, 2003. I am reinvigorating it now because I seem to have gotten in the habit of writing out various thoughts and observations and I don't want to lose that pleasure. As E. M. Forster says, "I know what I think when I see what I say," and so I shall see what I say, huzzah.

Today is also the two-year anniversary of the death of my grandmother: Carol Jean Sadler, 1937-2003. In honor of her, a poem. She was a great fan of Edna St. Vincent Millay, and also quite fond of talking about her high school boyfriends, so the text is not as inappropriate as it appears. My grandmother also bought me the laptop I've used the last four and a half years, and this is my first night with the lovely new laptop I've bought myself, so the timing of this message seems appropriate as well.

Life of late has mostly consisted of work: reading manuscripts; reviewing production passes of The Legend of the Wandering King, Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time, and the Book-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named; and arranging a reception at the Swedish consulate for my beautiful, beautiful Red Bird. I got to go to a reception at the consulate last night for the author Henning Mankell, and afterward to a screening of a movie based on his latest novel, Before the Frost. The movie was a little like "CSI: Sweden," but the characterizations were interesting, so I think I should like to read more of Mr. Mankell's work. Plus I had interesting conversations with a Swedish translator, a nice young jacket designer for Knopf, and Andre Schiffrin -- and I will leave it to my readers to suppose which of those contacts I found most delightful. :-)