a moment in the day: done. kind of.

I skid the chair back and get up from the desk and go downstairs but I don't know quite what to do with myself.

It's three o'clock and I haven't showered and I haven't eaten. I need to eat because I promised Stephen I would make one of the eggs our neighbor brought us from his very own chickens. Also, what do you know, I'm starving.

I go down to the basement and pull out a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. A lovely Christmas present. The bottle is sheathed in its own bright orange box. I take the box up the stairs and into the bedroom and take a picture of it next to the movie we will be watching tonight, even though Stephen doesn't know it.

Too Late for Tears, with Lizabeth Scott in the lead and Dan Duryea as Danny Fuller, the weasely tough who she ensnares in her femme fatale trap.

I don't know why I decided to name all the characters in my novel after this and other Lizabeth Scott noir films, but that's what I did, and after working on the book all day, I think I owe it to my characters Lizabeth and Scott  and Danny and Fuller and my protagonist Emmie Pennock (cobbled from Lizabeth Scott's real first name and her mother's maiden name) to watch it tonight.

I put the champagne in the fridge and take the dog out. Nicholas sniffs around the backyard shrubs. The sky is blue and full of big fluffy clouds. I kind of want to cry but that feels silly, so I take Nicholas inside and start making an egg. It's weird finishing a first draft of a novel. It feels momentous even though it's really just a tiny step in a project. The ending might not even stick. Still, it feels like a moment, and every moment deserves a little recognition.