One particular New Jersey summer shopping trip stands out. I was at the most nine or ten years old. We were in Sealfons, or Lord & Taylor, or maybe Macy's, my mother and I, at the business end of some very full bags of new school clothes. We must have been done with the shopping but were still in a browsy sort of mood. I spotted something, and I don't remember exactly the moment I did, but they were eggplant cotton cordoroy short-alls, and I fell in love. They were paired with a tee, dotted with little matchy eggplant-colored flowers. We can sit here and mock all we'd like that I fell in love with EGGPLANT SHORT-ALLS, and trust me, there's ample mocky material here, but it's really not the point.

My mother pointed out that we'd done all the shopping already; she pointed out that the short-alls weren't even school clothes, that I didn't need them. And she - and this is important - gently said no. And I remember being nine or ten and accepting that, walking away, not throwing a tantrum like I might have done when I was younger. We were walking down the polished department store aisle, away from the eggplant short-alls I'd set my heart on (perhaps because they matched my glasses?) and my mom turned to me.

She asked me if I was sad about the short-alls. I nodded. She asked if I felt all achy inside, like my heart hurt, because I was so sad not to have them. I said yes. And then she said okay, if I wanted them so badly to be heart-achy, then I should have them.

And my mom turned us around with all our shopping bags and bought me one pair of eggplant short-alls I didn't need, and I used them to distraction for about two years.

And aside from the fact that hey, I wore eggplant short-alls for TWO YEARS, the point here is that what my mother saw. Because she turned to me in a moment of quiet, a moment my tiny young brain was determined to overcome, and saw straight into me and understood that I might have been nine or ten and they might have been EGGPLANT FOR CHRISSAKES and I might have had more than enough clothes for that year, but I wanted them. And so she got them for me.

And that moment came back to me today, and I'm not sure why, but I realized it was something I needed to say to her for Mother's Day, something I could give her and show her, because she's in Greece and I haven't got a wrapped parcel to give. I need to thank my mother for being the sort of mother that could understand that heart-achy feeling when you just need a piece of fashion and there's no explaining it but you've got to have it. Maybe that wouldn't make the perfect mother for everyone but it makes her absolutely and without the shadow of a doubt the perfect mother for me.

And perhaps this is something that someone out there is going to judge, because some of you are judgy, but a gift my mother has given me is style and the times she gave it to me were sometimes, in those teenaged years of teenaged anguish, when we went shopping. It didn't matter how we clashed like the Titans over a million other things, my mother and I could always go shopping together and have an absolute riot of a time. We still can, the clashes having long faded away.

Thanks, Mom. For the eggplant short-alls you bought for me eighteen years ago to the three-inch patent black heels you bought me a month ago, when it comes to style and so many other things, you just know me better than I know myself and for that I love you. Happy Mother's Day. Let's go shopping when you get back.

Anyone?

26. Know enough about architecture to recognize the major schools and movements, particularly the churches.
27. Fill up a moleskine front to back with nothing but writing and story ideas.
28. Go back to the town in which I was born (BA, Argentina).
29. Own a Vespa.
30. Teach a writing workshop.
31. Drive a four-wheeled car through a shallow riverbed crossing.
32. Climb Kilimanjaro.
33. Have dinner with Bill Bryson.
34. Be involved with my alma mater.
35. Adopt a dog who suits the name Caspian (this one's about a decade old but still important).
36. Learn Greek.
37. Buy (and look great in!) a moderately expensive pair of amazing jeans.
38. Have Adirondack chairs, and a great porch to put them on.
39. Publish a short story in Granta.
40. Know my way around the lesser-known flowers.
41. Learn how to make perfect marinara sauce from scratch.
42. Hold a baby wild animal in my hands (or arms).
43. Throw the perfect anniversary party for Stuart and myself, in our tenth year, and then again at 25.
44. Serve on the Board for an organization close to my heart or ideals.
45. Live in England.
46. Give a toast at a close friend's wedding (Erin, Beth, I'm looking at you).
47. Take my parents to dinner at Peter Luger.
48. See the Alhambra with Stuart.
49. Take portraits of all my friends.
50. Own the complete unabridged OED, in twenty volumes.

I like the sounds of the cantor, and the arch of the priest's eyebrows as he reads the Epistle of St. John, and the stiff, nervous altar boys as they progress through the church with the sacrament. I like singing the Christos Anesti bit, even though it's all phonetic, and I like seeing the origins of language in the words, like cosmos and photos and necron. I'm not crazy about the standing parts I confess but since a few Alexander lessons have lodged under my belt it's an interesting time to practice.

I like, most of all, being there with my dad. I hope it's not terrible to anyone that I don't say the Nicene Creed or the Lord's Prayer anymore because they feel so sacred, and personal, so meaningful if you're saying them right. I follow along with the Greek, recognizing the letters and recognizing my heritage and I hope that's alright.

Happy easter to anyone who's celebrating today. Let's all eat of meat! That part I'm wholly behind.

Inspired by the matchless Maggie Mason. Not inspired by that Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman vehicle. Suggestions welcome on how to cross these off, or do share some of your own.

He went to the store and my heart broke a little because I didn’t like the weakness and the addiction, although I did (and probably still would) always enjoy smoking itself. When he came home I said that maybe I should try the patch. I said I’d start the next day. Some part of me said it on a whim - maybe to redeem myself to Stuart, maybe to dare myself into trying. Regardless, I meant it. An hour or so later, when I was going batty from a few hours’ withdrawal, Stuart admitted he had bought a pack, and did I want just one, before bed?

It was the kindest thing he could have done, and probably the hardest. But I had that one and made him promise he’d take the pack and throw it away immediately. I didn’t even want to see it.

The next day, as I was tidying before we went out to brunch with a stop at the drugstore for patches, I noticed some books sticking out of the shelf. When I pushed them in, I realized there was something behind them. The pack, hidden by Stuart in the way I used to hide them when I was secretly smoking. My heart dropped out the bottom of my feet. Stuart was at the grocery store. Here I was in the house with them, freshly resolved to give them up. I could take one. I could smoke it and throw away the tough-cornered willpower I’d found last night.

I don’t know how long I stood there but something forced me to push down the ridiculous tears and put the goddamned things on the kitchen table. I kept cleaning. Furiously. I avoided the kitchen. When Stuart came home I told him, and he heard where we stood, Cigarettes and I. Maybe that was the first time we both realized I was serious. Then he took me to the drugstore and helped me put the patch on and took me to a delicious brunch and I haven’t had a cigarette in six months, today, not even one. Which, so that you have some context, is the longest I’ve ever gone. I don't think any moment was as hard as the one standing at the bookshelf holding my beloved Camel Lights, so it's good I got the worst out of the way first. It's also good to have my prize.

See, two weeks later, as he agreed that night of the last cigarette, we went to the shelter and came home with Nano. Stuart told me I couldn’t smoke and have a dog. Beyond the practicality of not being able to afford the two fairly expensive habits, he knew he could give me something on which to pin my resolve. It worked. He still jokes that if I go back to smoking, he’ll take Nano back to the shelter but we both know Nano is for keeps. So are my slowly recuperating lungs.

Where am I going with this? Oh, I’m sick of wearing six sweaters! April, sack up ho.

However there was plenty of convivial laughter at drinks with my crowd last night and it reminded me that even when we don’t all make it into one dimension we are a multi-petaled flower of awesome! Especially when I realized I was showing off pictures of someone’s new someone on Luke’s iPhone like some kinda crazy yenta grandmama. Look at those cheeks! Puddemthere.

Did you know Stuart is going to the fair and pleasant land next week? You people should send chocolates and puppies oh wait! I have both. Maybe I will post little two-hundreds here for Stuart to read from Old Wighty. Maybe I’ll just call him. Love! It ages well.

I’ve been namby-pambying back and forth over whether we should get the NY Times Weekend delivered. One the one hand, I love cozying up with Week in Review. On the other hand, wow, that’s a lot of dead trees!

Walking in our park (yes it is ours, you may walk in it if you’d like) I looked at our beautiful multi-borough view and LO! There was a giant yellow and blue thing squatting in Red Hook. Brooklyn IKEA! Verily, have you come to pass? Will I be able to resist your siren call much longer? Especially when I’ve got stewardship of my mom’s car in May? Magic 8 Ball says no.

Things that are righteous awesome: chili night, library books, being twenty pounds lighter, Nano growling at himself during solo tug-of-war, spring trips, checking off to-do lists.

Things that should man up: spring, our television and its mysterious turny-offy disease, mealy apples, ABC spring programming already.

Here's to four years of walking down the streets of this city, making each other laugh. May there be decades more.

limerick cobbled together by Stuart and Krissa

Nano obviously totally failing to grasp the concept of the arms-length portrait. Best viewed in rapid succession.

Feeling guilty that there’s a Department of City Planning meeting in my neighborhood about their zoning/re-zoning plans and I’m not going. I should get involved with the world around me, Goal #329 for 2008! But I also want to be home making dinner and singing silly songs at Nano, sorry Community.

Anyone else tempted to try Electrolicious’s Unplugged project? I am, mostly because I suspect I will utterly fail. No screens would mean I’d finish that scarf and write letters and go to bed early. Whaddya think? Want to do it with me? I am a pack animal.

Barely functional comment section is taking all comers.

It’s also been raining fit to float an ark around here, so it’s been nice to be cozied up in the office thrashing away at a video game and then tearing apart a chicken for dinner. We are savages! Well, savages that get rotisserie chickens at Whole Foods anyway. Yuppie savages! Definitely.

We watched Brazil during dinner and let me tell you a funny story that really just encapsulates me: back in college I sat down to watch it with friends and a piping hot pizza and, well, something about the pizza tasted off so I went and threw it up? Not only did I not eat pizza again for a year, I somehow decided that I never wanted to watch Brazil. People, I was wrong! Shit was funny.
And fin!