Friday, 04 January 2002 | Opossum

It's slowly dissolving into noisy drips of water off the corners of houses and the tips of icicles, and with it dissolves the guiltless time to sit at home pasting pictures in books and watching marathons of movie trailers, excuses to invite friends over to play board games, and the incentive to walk to the neighborhood store instead of driving there. My car is still immobile, and the earth is still white, but the footsteps that violently crushed the smooth surface of the snow are no longer being filled in, and the black shingled rooftops are beginning to undress. Maybe by the time the last of it melts, I'll be well again, now that I've missed sledding and snowman-building invitations and two days of work.

I haven't been completely homebound, though. Last night I stomped through knee-deep drifts at the train tracks and fed chocolate to a hungry opossum who met me there. I molded one or two pitiful crumbly snowballs, and I walked to the store with Martin in search of ingredients for homemade soup. Today I feel up for more, now that I have relearned how to dress for this weather, and now that the sun is out.