I'd been contemplating the shattering realization that I'd no idea where ideas, thoughts or impulses 'came from,' (this seems like a such a simple fact, but it's rarely ever acknowledged. If people are like transistor radios --well, then, from where do the transmissions originate?) If I'm not looking forward to the future or spinning a narrative and generating meaning as to what's happening in the present -- what am I doing? I think this is why I've enjoyed watching so many films as of late. At least, while engaged with a plot, there's a vestigial sense of linear living. Like an echo back to the mechanics of doing things.

And it was turning dark so quick and the full moon had popped an eerie sliver over Seatac Airport -- a slow moving spook. Persistent wind, moving east to west -- a rare weather pattern in Seattle -- made the water in the Sound hit hard into the shore, so it sounded like we lived beside the ocean. Waves crashing. And I imagined lots of sand instead of the big lake-like rocks and pebbles that comprise our waterfront.

So, that was my narrative for last night. The premise: Somewhere a village was missing an idiot. Slow pan to: A middle-aged blank smudge watching the sky through some tall windows. Enough, in and of itself. End of story.

Eventually I stirred and started dinner. I turned on the tree lights. The CD player was set to 'rotate,' so while I chopped vegetables and boiled water it was Louis Armstrong doing White Christmas and then Emmylou Harris with Beautiful Star of Bethlehem and then Shawn Colvin with In The Bleak Mid-Winter. And Bing Crosby from Merry Christmas, that classic album, which, every time I hear it I think about being 13 years old and waiting eagerly for December 15 to arrive because the local radio station in our small town would start playing Christmas songs back to back after that date. And I liked that a lot. "Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?"

The siamese came in and started talking for his dinner, and copy cat Lili, the bengal, did the exact same thing -- sidling up against her 'brother' and then putting her ass right into his face, as she nudged her way into the conversation -- though she wasn't even hungry -- she just wanted her share of the attention.

Alex arrived, after a long stretch at his job, and we drank some wine with dinner. Talked about his mom and brother arriving next week for the holiday -- all the rearranging we needed to do in the house, and the cleaning. Later in the evening I shot through a small book. The last interview that film critic Pauline Kael gave before she died. It didn't offer any big epiphanies, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. By reading Kael consistently (while she was stationed at The New Yorker), she taught me how to appreciate movies, their different levels: The symbols and subtext. What films told us about the way we live. No wonder she lost interest in the mid-80s -- now it seems that 'story' has been set on replay forever. (Though with Dubya in office Reagan seems like an intellect of staggering genius, so there is some variance to the 'plot.')

And then we went to bed.

This morning I got up too early (too much couching the day before, I suppose), around six with the sun just barely creeping over the edge of the Cascades. It was biting cold and the cats followed me up to the kitchen, darting back and forth between my feet -- hungry again, ready to eat and sleep and eat and sleep, again -- without a care in the world. On went the CD player:

"Through the years we all will be together. If the fates allow. Hang a shinning star upon the highest bough. And have yourself a merry little Christmas now."

Do.