For a Christmas present, Steve gave me a weekend at the Hotel Monaco, downtown, assorted spa services at Ummelina Day Spa, and a luscious dinner out, so long as I invite someone who's not a man. Hours of internal thought musings completely unchecked by drive frame intervals, auto-behave loops for countertop wiping, or sibling rivalry instruction-set interrupts... wow. Where does the mind go? Round and round, round and round.

As luck would have it, there was some kind of storm, and the wind made it pretty undesirable to walk the streets of the city. I leaned across the street to the public library. I had a nap. I got to my spa appointment (facial). I made it to dinner (luscious) and I had epiphanic realizations of the smallish-but-good order. Composed 4 pages of an artist's journal and like 5 pages of a photo album. Read some. Pretty fantastic. Pretty much exactly what I needed.

I have to admit I'm kind of suspicious of spas. Like,