I am grateful... for my dentist and the way he smiles after he's done working inside my mouth and how that simple smile tells me, "see, it really wasn't as bad as you thought it would be" I am grateful... for my husband and the way he makes inappropriate gestures with canned goods in the grocery store and how I spontaneously burst into giggles for the rest of the shopping trip I am grateful... for my friend and the way she left for me a phone message and how that message reminded me that I'm not the only person in the world who thinks the story of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes meeting was romantic I am grateful... for my new school and the way the staff has welcomed me and how much it reminds me of another school where I worked and felt loved and accepted and appreciated I am grateful... for OPI "You Otta Wear Purple" and the way it shines on my toes and how it makes me feel like a million bucks even when I wear plastic Wal-Mart flip flops I am gratef...

A recurring theme in my life right now is how our lives collide at any given moment with the lives of those around us, often in inconvenient times and methods. Promotions can be granted while someone loses a job. A miscarriage can be mourned while a birth is celebrated. Couples break up while weddings are planned. Choices are altered by circumstances within and beyond our control. What amazes me is how often we're all dealing with our own degrees of pain and joy at any given moment. Today I learned that someone very dear to me has been carrying a burden for at least the last 4 years. I'm directly connected to that burden, through no malice on either side. It's just life at work. Our lives collided, leaving both of us feeling pretty bruised and bloody and lost in the silence of the unspeakable. I want to wrap my arms around this person. And cry. And apologize. And mourn the shift in our lives' paths. Perhaps that day will arrive at some point. Until then, I still need to...

Right now, I'm feverishly trying to meet a writing deadline for today. I've known about it all week, but the diversions of life (like a trip to the only pharmacy in the county that will fill my dog's prescription, a successful search for a new computer bag, and an irritated piriformis) have a way of sapping my inspiration. This magazine article is about a fascinating real estate company in Tuscany. In fact, if I had the money, I would buy one of their properties tomorrow just so I could go out for myself and wander the ancient cobblestone streets of Italian villages. And that's just what I'm trying to convey in this article. So far, I have 162 of 1000 words finished. Thinking that some wine might push along the creative process, I opened the closest thing I had to an Italian wine. It's a German auslese: very, very sweet, and it's from a region far closer to Italy than the Argentine wines on my shelf. So here I am molding the words in my head like modeling cl...