Book report 1

Where are you going? Where have you been?

We went to Wisconsin, to mourn with a friend. By day three, I saw that she was more beautiful than I had remembered. Wrapped in her own pain, she stayed away from the Katrina coverage. But, like the floodwaters, the news it would seep. We sat in a restaurant while a CNN helicopter tossed water bottles to New Orleaneans trapped on a balcony. On the muted TV screen, the balcony people scrambled like silent gulls.

I started to keep a journal. Which means I forget to write here. In the journal, I'm mostly writing about writing. Or sometimes writing to get writing. Book manuscript due, and all too soon. At least now I have a room of my own, an office all sunlight and green.

Book report: Here's a hackneyed metaphor. If my book manuscript were a birth, I'd be at only two centimeters right now.