1. Today was a very long day. Up at 6:something with anxiety, rolling on four or five hours of sleep for the foreseeable past, and a week’s worth of snow-slosh to traverse while still breaking in my new (painful) boots – these things make a long day feel longer. I forget about gloves and scarves occasionally, so when I have to hold another heavy bag for a long walk, I’m forced to toggle the hand that holds the bag with the hand that stays in a warm pocket. The trick is to focus on the warm hand rather than the cold one. (I’m too stubborn to acknowledge the life lesson.)

2. The first and last cars of the NJ transit train are “designated quiet cars”. I’m always pleasantly surprised that I’ve accidentally sat down in one of those – you don’t know how much you need silence until you get it. That was the case tonight on the way home. As I sat down, I opened a little bag of kettle chips which was maybe the second thing I ate today, but as I bit the first chip, I remembered they are the loudest thing ever in the history of the planet. I had to either forgo my chips, or gather all my bags and move to another car. I took the third option – annoy everyone and eat the chips. About three chips in, my diet coke spastically jumped out of my hand and poured itself all over my jeans. And coat. And the wall of the train. And the window. And the seat…and the floor. I just wish there had been any apparent reason for it, but I just sat and stared at the mess for a minute before wiping up everything with my coat sleeve.

3. I create a lot of messes.

4. Some nights, the end cap to a long day is a power song on the final walk home. Tonight was a hunched, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, eyes to the ground, slow march – I was aloof, crunching the slick, creme brulee ice layer that covered the snow. I thought of all the messes I’ve made and how I’ll eventually die with probably less than half of them figured out or untangled. There is not always a way to glance up at the ledger and correct an error, sometimes there’s no fixing it. As tears welled up, I thought of an old cartoon where a baby penguin cried ice cubes, which made me think – how cold would it have to be for my tears to freeze immediately. Some things to consider: the starting temperature is right around 98.6, but the amount is so little that the kinetic energy would dissipate quickly. Also, tears have salt and other stuff, so would that require a lower temperature? Probably, since all the shop owners I pass on the way to work throw salt in front of their shops so the snow will melt. Also, if there’s an equal and opposite reaction to my tears freezing, does that mean that I’ve warmed up the atmosphere in some minuscule way? I wasn’t really sad anymore, and my sad sloshing had led me home.

5. “One  dreadful  glance  over  my shoulder I essayed-not long enough to see (or did I see?) the rim of the sunrise that shoots Time dead with golden arrows and puts to flight all phantasmal shapes. Screaming, I buried my face in the folds of my Teacher’s robe. ‘The morning! The morning!’ I cried, ‘I am caught by the morning and I am a ghost.’ But it was too late. The light, like solid blocks, intolerable of edge and weight, came thundering upon my head.” -C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce