In which I continue to flout the laws of effective blogging

It's been a whole week since my last entry. I feel such a failure. I should be blogging every day, or two or three times a day. Give that rat its jellybean.

Oh, there was a point where I seriously thought about making a post, but simply didn't have the time to do so. Even now, I feel that I am taking time away from something important that I am avoiding, but I wanted to capture this moment of simultaneous contentment and restlessness.

Contentment: the scent of free-range chicken from a local farmer, cooking slowly with lemon, garlic, and vermouth, is in my nostrils. Around nine--we eat late, partly because I want to watch Bleak House in peace--I will braise radicchio and ricotta to serve with it, as well as a nice inexpensive rose. My white cat perches on the chair behind me, such a baby, despite his ten years. My calico darling sits on the arm of my chair, bewitching me with her adorable soft kittenness. My orange tabby--the Old Woman, the Alpha Female, still beautiful and fearsome--lounges on the back of the sofa, behind my beloved husband. Outside, snow falls. I type all this in a pleasant haze borne of the consumption of two G&Ts.

Restlessness: about ten minutes ago, I crept up behind my handsome brilliant husband and pulled his head back and kissed him passionately on the lips. He is in the midst of preparing tomorrow's lecture for his graduate seminar. He returned my affection with stiff, tolerant lips. "You kiss like a book," I murmured, and though I doubt he caught the reference, the criticism stung somewhat. Oh, my darling, I want to be with you somewhere beyond the reach of students, NSF, DOE, the need for tenure...somewhere where all those things are in suspension, and you and I are all that matter, and I can drown in my desire for you. I want you to devour me. You tell me that all you want, ever, is to be with me, and yet, so many mundane things intrude upon our life together.

Let me describe this man for you: he is tall, gangly, bifocaled, but his piercing blue eyes crinkle kindly behind thick lenses. He smells of Old Spice and clean laundry. His humor is boyish. He is deeply intelligent but unsure of himself. He is a kind and sympathetic master to his apprentices, his graduate students. In 1996, when Carl Sagan succumbed to cancer, he wept. He is kind and loving to small children and animals and has a faithful following among both. He cherishes me like a fragile, treasured heirloom.

Herein, preliminary noises about the daunting nature of a blank page and an empty post.

Or, rather, as dear Mr. Thomas would have said, " To begin at the beginning: It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black." Which I like much better as an introduction than "It was a dark and stormy night."

It is not spring, although the bulbs outside my house have been fooled into believing that it is. Last week I noticed, rather with horror, that tiny green shoots are erupting from the ground where my King Alfreds are planted. On Friday we had a gorgeous thunderstorm, which I would have relished if it had been March instead of the end of January, but instead sat inside my office looking out with a cup of soy chai latte and lamenting the fact that it was probably too late to cover my fragile new plants with mulch, and probably futile as well.

Now an arctic cold lies over the whole region, and I cannot seem to get warm. I am sitting in the armchair in my husband's study (to get me to stay and keep him company, he sweetly tucked me in with a blanket, put a cat on my legs, and brought me a cup of tea) and trying, awkwardly, to begin again on a blog whose title is based on a silly, private sort of mondegreen.

You have heard of what the French call l'esprit d'escalier--"the wit of the staircase"--that absolutely perfectly brilliant retort that comes to mind after one has left the party and is ascending to one's room--but you have never heard of the "witch of the staircase," that beguiling, mischievous enchantress who secretly ties one's tongue and does not loosen it until clever repartee is no longer of use. Somewhere along the way, as a child, I misheard this phrase, and although soon enough corrected was disappointed that no such magical lady existed.

Once upon a time, I had another online diary, in another place, and it was a different kind of blog, one that has grown so unwieldy over time that I've grown tired of keeping it and would like to start again, somewhat more anonymously, building a different sort of circle, writing different kinds of posts, posts that are somewhat more careful and thoughtful. This is the blog I should have kept, with the things I should have written. Because the witch of the staircase is nothing if not all about second chances at wit, even if only for an audience of one.

Who am I? A thirty-something creative professional, married to a scientist. I was born and educated on the East Coast; graduated from college, married my sweetheart who was embarking on graduate school at a large, distinguished Midwestern research university. I also went to graduate school for a time and obtained a couple of advanced degrees in literature before becoming bored and deciding to do something else, which I do now, and quite happily. We live in a large house in a small but relatively civilized university community somewhere in the Midwest. I doubt I'll ever want to move back East; I don't especially miss it, although I do travel home twice a year to visit my mother, siblings, and nieces.

That's pretty much all you need to know about me for right now, although I'm sure I will disclose more--deliberately and inadvertently, in future posts. Whether anyone is actually listening...