march.

Mark and I were supposed to have company for dinner tonight. I bought all the ingredients for this very suave Asian Sesame Chicken dish, and I was ready. My friend Megan called at 6:45 (they were supposed to come at 7) to tell me that her husband was sick, and they'd have to take a rain check. Bummer.

But now, I'm sitting in the writing room with the toad lamp on, which only casts a minimal yellowish glow over the room. The overhead light is offensive and prohibited. Mark and Sidney are curled up in Sidney's bed beside my perfect little desk, and we're listening to Frank Sinatra. I made the meal, and we ate half of it, and put the leftovers in the fridge for lunches this week. We did the dishes together, and filmed a video of Sid and me dancing around the kitchen. Having nothing to do is turning out to be quite a good time.

March used to be my least favorite month. It has always felt like a month-long headache to me, with lots of rain and gray days, inbetween temperatures where you're too hot if you wear socks and close toed shoes, but too cold in flip-flops. April is a little better because my dad's birthday is in April, and April is the month before May. May is an unarguably wonderful month, mostly because of flowers and Hannah's birthday.

In N. Carolina, the trees have started blooming and there are long successions of cloudless, sunny days. Granted, I tend to forget that on the gray ones, but I am being cleansed from this antipathy for March. maybe I will even like March. That's progress, folks. Hannah is going to have a baby any day now, whose birthday will be in March, and Mark's parents are coming to visit in a few weeks to help us grow a lawn in place of the straw that lays in brambles all over the front, and the dirt in the back.

Lately I have been writing a new book. It's called Roma Roma, and it's about this catering company macrocosmically, and this thirty-year-old single mom named Rosy microcosmically. It is written in first person, which is a new challenge. I love this book already, ninety pages in. I'm also sending out Lost Lily week by week, receiving copious silences and rejections. However, bright spot, I got a minimally personalized response from an agent this week who said, "Many thanks for sending me this material, which I read with interest."

SHE THINKS IT'S INTERESTING. Praise God. I can step back because this is a step forward. "This is a totally subjective view," she said.

It feels good to be in March this year - organic and rich, like good soil.