Mr. Fix-it is now a fixture at our house

A tide clock breaks: Mark orders the replacement parts, dissembles the clock completely, puts in the new works, checks the tide charts for Wellfleet bay, and returns the clock to its owner with the clock's hands telling the morning and evening tides. A pull-string from our bathroom's mini-blind snaps, and before I can blink, Mark's got the shade down with the cover off as needle-nosed pliers in hand, he re-threads the cord through the minute hole and suddenly we're in business again. The soap dispenser under the kitchen sink stops working, and Mark slithers backwards into the chasm under the sink to discover that a little plastic part has broken; if he could get another, he'd fix that, too.

Who is this man? And what has happened to my husband?

I've been thinking about writing a blog for at least a couple of years, but how could I start without a name? My niece Isabella suggested "Notes from an unknown celebrity" which I am to her but which Mark felt smacked of hubris. I've been using my FB posts to chronicle what I do, but now I want to write about what I feel, think, and observe.

I'm always looking around, noticing things other people pass by. Random details of life and landscape get my attention. I notice a folded compact blue umbrella lying under the concrete train platform while riding by. I see it, I think--"Maybe there's a poem in this", I fantasize that I write it and The New Yorker publishes it...then the train stops, I get out, and notice something else, and another...it's no wonder that I constantly forget where I leave my keys, my watch, my ring--my mind is otherwise occupied.

And in this stage of my life, the part that comes in between working and old age, I'm watching even more closely. The voice inside my head speaks to me about me, and I have the time and brain-space to listen. So in some ways, this blog will be an extension of my consciousness.

Welcome!