time slips by and i have already been home so long it seems. the scuffing of slippers on the shedding rug, the cat with cold ears slinking in the backyard, the symphony of snoring and meowing, nyquil cough formula and new hats pulled down low.

xmas was spent in a house over the ocean, my own half of a duplex on the cliffs with a fireplace and hottub. cousins home from college with longer hair and we all have the same brown eyes and cheeks. wandering in and out of the tiny kitchen, xmas dinner was paper plates, potato latkas, rum, bits of cheese and ham, whatever we wanted. long walks on the beach, marilyn monroe movies, xmas presents wrapped in newspaper labelled with markers, thrift stores where i turned the corner onto my aunt crying into a textbook. my aunt drunk and insisting we read a christmas carol out loud. my aunt filling up the the stockings the night before and laying them out because we are all old and it is more the mechanical-ness of it that is what matters. feeling as if something is missing. what is missing is you running up the stairs, bringing home an airhockey table from the dump. what is missing is that you are not there and we are all not quite sure how to behave without you.