05 May 2003 - 10:23 a.m.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to a party with excellent food, wine and conversation. I was very amused to hear the hostess claim "the reason I'm a good cook is that, as a kid, given the choice between cooking and yardwork, I always opted for cooking." She also said:

. . .when I started gardening, I figured I would stick with perennials, because I didn't want this business of putting in new plants every year - so it took me a while to figure it out: they're perennials because they're lazy. You get one flower for maybe one week and the rest of the time they're just there. Annuals, they have nothing else to do, so they go all out. Flowers all summer long.

When I got back home, the stereo was playing Suzanne Vega's "The Queen and the Soldier," so I knew that the Beautiful Young Man had returned from his IBDone reunion up north. It had been a quasi-productive weekend without him - tackled a story, some poems, and a good deal of correspondence - but with liberal amounts of moping. It's not like we're even in the same room all that much when he's home - last night he wanted to watch TV and I wanted to read Virginia Woolf - but it does make a difference, knowing he's in the house.

Among other things, living with a continuity goon provides considerable amusement: as I lounged in the bath with my book, I could hear bursts of snide commentary aimed at the screen. It made my heart glad.

One year ago: "her tea-cake hand / nonetheless lifts from her lap to sketch. . ."