Last night

Last night I slept with my MacBook Pro by my side, its little blue-white light pulsing in time to my breathing. Last night I plugged my old friend's latest address into Google Maps and plotted my trip to his house from here. 101 miles, an hour and fifty-five minutes. Last night on Hulu.com I saw an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Show that I'd first seen some forty-plus years ago, about a women waiting forty years for her dead husband's body to travel through an alpine glacier. It freaked me out again. Last night I pointed my iPhone toward the sky and marked the position of the stars.

Last night I ordered two pairs of lined pants, two dress shirts, and a sleeveless sweater through an online catalogue. Everything was in stock and will be delivered to the house this coming week. Last night I read this week's New York Times Book Review on my laptop. The 76-year-old master critic Helen Vendler praising the 82-year-old poet John Ashbery. I found the piece unutterably moving, though I've never been much of an Ashbery fan. Last night I ate braised beef ribs from cattle raised in Skillman, New Jersey, potatoes from Rogowski farm in Pine Island, dates from Thermal, California, and drank a Côtes du Roussillon from the Languedoc. I have pictures of these places on my hard drive.

Last night I made a fire of logs cut from trees downed in the ice storm of December 2008. They hissed and spat before going up in smoke. Their ashen remains told me nothing of the future. Last night I stared across the snowy backyard at the flickering blue light of my neighbor's wide-screen television before she and her boyfriend shut the blinds. Last night I remembered your soft breath in my ear and gentle, gentle hands.

My life today is no better than it was yesterday.