"The lamp is burning low upon my table top."

It is cold here this week. The latches are frosting up now that the sun has set. The bop has had one last romp along the fence with her friends next door; the evening will be too cold for it, too cold for anything more than a perfunctory walk with markgritter. She comes in excited, running in circles to warm herself. We shared a snack this afternoon, freeze-dried mango slices and toasted hazelnuts. She neither had nor wanted my hot chocolate; she only wants the kind with cayenne in, which she also can't have. We looked out into the backyard together as the sun started to set. I was glad January Thaw didn't steal all my snow. Mid-January light on snow here is like nothing else.

I did several things that were on the long-term to-do list, including making an appointment to put together a will. A family friend, someone I've met once or twice, is in a bad situation due to the lack of one. Anyway it seemed like time. If you don't have one, if someone might be left vulnerable by its lack, think on it. It's off the to-do list and on the calendar. Progress.

One of the things that seems to have come out of last week's vertigo specialist appointment is more of an internal sense of certainty. I'm not falling less, and I'm still hanging onto things as I go about the house. But I have the sense of being able to do the next thing, and sometimes that next thing is setting aside for later something I can't do right now. I have the sense of enough tasks to occupy my hands, but also of enough hands to accomplish the tasks before me. Maybe. With help.

And with some of that has gone my urge to wibble on livejournal. I consulted timprov on a minor and unimportant point of revision, something that can easily be redone in the next draft, he concurred, and instead of setting up a livejournal poll or asking around how you liked to have this particular issue handled, I just set about making that scene work. No guarantee that it will, of course, and I know that. I am feeling at home in here again, is I think what it is. In a cheesy metaphorical sense, I know where the doorframes and railings and bookshelves are to reach out and steady myself. The literal internal gyroscopes are still messed up, but the figurative ones are feeling more accurate than they have in quite awhile.

There will be warm, comforting, simple food for dinner. It is cold out there, and in here I am warm and quiet and doing good work. This is good.