It took me a while to figure it out, but I made a couple of lists and compared times and ran a regression and - well, Houston's a nice place I spent some time there in the mid-80s, weeks and weeks at a lovely boutique hotel downtown, the Lancaster, where once my boss (whom I liked very much) whispered to me with awe when the elevator doors closed, "That was T. Boone Pickens." I liked coming "home" at night to the beautiful hotel, ordering fillet mignon & wine for dinner, going to some spa or club down the street mornings for exercise. What a life I had! We lost the case though, oh well.

I want to be kissed until I tingle someone croons on Women of Note. Oh no, not me - I am strictly reporting. Okay so you lost your iPhone. I'm thinking you have a chocolate Lab though. But who knows? Or you were in Japan the whole time? I am feeling just ever so slightly crazy this afternoon. Perhaps in a parallel universe an alternate version of me is having a good time. Paraphrasing a line from a wonderful film D & I saw this morning at the film festival, Rabbit Hole. It's a film adaptation of a play that ran at the Manhattan Theatre Club a few years ago. I wasn't aware of it, but seeing the film was like watching a play, in the best sense, I mean, that the characters are closely observed, the story reveals itself in little detonations that one doesn't quite see coming, it's quite intense, very, very credible. I can be quite restless in a movie theatre, but there was just something so assured and masterly yet low-key about the pacing that I felt very carried along with it. Looking up the Times review now of the original play - that must have been a wonderful production. Great Nicole Kidman in the film - isn't she always? Also Dianne Wiest - I love her - and she steals every scene she's in, bless her!

Gray most of the day, with some breaks of sun, quite mild out but chilly in the house. I'm bundled in several layers already - thin camisole, cashmere tee, russet orange long sleeved tee, a black knit/crocheted shawly sweater that I really like, and a dark orange "Columbia" fleece on top of that even here as I type. Before we moved up here I had bought all these cashmere sweater sets at Lord & T. for like 90 percent off in post-Christmas sales. I was saving them up for the longest time - now, in cold weather, I wear them every day in layers, and sleep in the pink cashmere. Isn't that so very pre-French Revolution of me? I seem to recall one of the causes being "land-rich/cash-poor". I have literally loose change in my wallet - but I sleep in cashmere! (Oh lucky me! I'm not complaining. We own the house. I have loose change because I went food shopping and bought lovely things, including discounted good leg quarters for chicken paprikash later this week, and how smart am I to break out the cashmere while I'm still around to completely savor it?)

Sweet violets. What else about Houston? No zoning, I gather. Underground tunnels downtown. I do have some relatives there, transplants. The Menil Museum. I liked the Rothkos. No - that's not right, there's a separate Rothko Chapel museum, isn't there? I liked both. But especially the Rothko chapel, sitting in the center of it looking at all the surrounding paintings, like being in the middle of a merry go round except everything centrifuged at the edges has gone large and still and colorful, it's my mind that moves.

Perhaps in an alternate universe a version of me is having a good time. This isn't so bad. Let me go downstairs and see about transforming half-price shitakes into a beautiful pasta sauce. I hope you're well in whatever version of the universe you're in that you chanced by at minutes after five - thanks you, I caught that kiss.

XOXO