This week it was very gray

and that has leaked into everything, de-coloring life from day to day, the dog walks and my work at the library, the meals with my visiting daughter and son-in-law, the afternoons where I sit and try try try to write. Have my moods always been so susceptible to the weather? I complain about it at dinner,

the impenetrable, seemingly never-ending grayness of winter in Columbus, Ohio, and my son-in-law, who has just cooked us another fantastic meal, mishears me and thinks I said "gray anus" and so that is what it is now in my head, Gray Anus Weather. Meanwhile,

at night we are watching The White Lotus, a show about wealthy people at a luxurious resort, which reminds me of old favorite shows from my childhood Love Boat and Fantasy Island, but taking it to such a wild dark place that all of us crammed up on the couch with the dogs can't stop gasping in horror and/or cracking up. Humans are so terrible and ridiculous.

I have sworn off the news but it still creeps in. More gun deaths. Crazy politicians and stupid fights in DC. The price of eggs. I am reading a book about memory and how our default setting is to forget. Don't worry, the author says, if you forget where you left your car keys or if you can't remember why you entered a room, the important thing is you know what car keys are, and you can find your way out of the room. I am embarrassed to admit how greatly relieved I am to read this.

The author also says that we are more likely to remember emotionally significant events. Most other things slip away forever. Unless we write them down. The trouble with me is I write everything down.

My daughter and son-in-law head home, and our house is quiet again. Lonely. In the morning (I was going to say "when the sun comes up" but there is no sun) So, to revise: In the morning when the sky lightens, it looks like it is going to be another gray anus day.

Instead, it begins to snow. Thick and swirling and quickly covering the bare tree branches, the lawn, the street. The whole world outside my window grows white and bright. I want to revise again. It’s going to be a good day.