New Years Eve I rose in the early, unhurried dark and made my way back west. I hit many of the major forms of transportation–car, foot, plane, people mover, light rail, bus–and arrived back in Portland twelve hours after waking. I didn't even make it to midnight on east coast time, exhausted with the effort of crossing a country.

I've now slept, finished off the last of the sweets (for a while), exercised off half a sliver of the massive amounts of chocolate and cheese that I've eaten over the last week and gotten back to work. I sifted my way through the pile of mail, sneering at a pat rejection letter that took a year and a half to get here then moved on to better news. I've been awarded a week long stay at Hypatia-in-the-Woods, a retreat center for women artists in Shelton, WA.

Come March, I will be tucked away in this little secluded house with nothing to do but write. How wonderful. My thought is to try and write something new while I'm there. I want to dig in to the solitude, send the nagging critic off into the woods with some bread crumbs and see what happens.