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Visit me at my new blog, Alphabird, which I hope to have up and running by next week. This blog will not have quite the ambitious pace of 365.

For a few endnotes to the 365 project, click on the comments.

Thanks for reading.

—Indigo Bunting

365/365 Dorothy

One on the beach with sister and girlfriends; another boasting dressed-up sisters with violin and viola; one just married. My mantel photos show someone unknowable: the mysterious she-before-me. Who’s that living a life before she was my mother—that life that led to mine?

364/365 Kathie

The one who would come when parents were gone, the brick-haired beauty bearing games and projects, the gal who liked to sing “Sugar Town” and was the first to assure me that flossy milkweed seeds buffeted by breeze were not in fact flying spiders.

363/365 Another Dan

Imagine his face upon realizing that not only had Susan gotten him to the Sonoran Desert for his birthday, but that it was really my birthday party, so determined was I to spend sunset with saguaros then hot-tub with friends under crazy desert stars.

362/365 Lars

Possibly everyone was a little in love with the guy who grew up growing roses. There was nurture in his nature—or was it the other way around? We delighted in mouthing his Vikinglike name.

Our campus call and response:

Lars: Namibia!
Me: Zimbabwe!

361/365 Another Dana

We took after-school French lessons together and became friends. She had a goody-goody demeanor, but surprised me by sneaking rum into Rocky Horror. Alison loved it; I was paranoid (but partook). A mere twenty-five years later I finally snuck some decent pinot into Sideways.

360/365 A Fourth Mark

Junior year, my neighbor and I were the new kids. I bummed rides in his old blue Fiat (a choke on the dash). Good-looking and pissed off, he openly scoffed at what passed for “mountains.” For awhile, I made out with his older brother.

359/365 Nvwa

We wanted to be the joy that he was, this Nigerian preacher whose voice alone could keep us tucked between the cupped palm of his hand and his heart. He was otherworldly, othersideoftheworldly to Pennsylvania kids at a church camp. Agnostics were warmly welcomed.

358/365 Sheree

There’s something about Sheree. She greets people with gladness. She’s at once energized and serene. As one gets to know her, though, there will be quick and sudden glimpses of a naughty side. I suspect she harbors some deep sweet secrets behind those smiles.

357/365 A Third Brian

In, like, sixth grade, his family went on a skiing vacation. This stunned me, as I (a) didn’t know I knew anyone who could ski and (b) hadn’t considered skiing a family activity. Inconceivable! I had so much to learn about the upper class.

356/365 April and Jan

Theirs was the first gay wedding I ever attended, at a West Virginia retreat. Kim and Linda married there too. Both couples broke up, which taught me that homo odds are about the same as hetero. April’s leaving broke my heart a little too.

355/365 A Fourth Tim

He called me Kemo; I called him Tonto. He was my faithful co-counselor. There was flirtatious undercurrent. Later, at college, I must’ve done something to piss him off. Soon it was like we didn’t even know each other, and then, of course, we didn’t.

354/365 Another Diana

She was my favoritest camper. In my mind’s eye, she’ll always be my gigglin’ 14-year-old tapioca-eating buddy. In the World of Now, though, she’s 39, sings with the Master Chorale of Washington, bikes centuries, teaches ESL, and globetrots. Sigh. They grow up so fast.

353/365 Allen

works hard to make the unaffordable affordable. First he gave me an interest-free loan. Then he offered payment-based discounts. Best of all, he and his brother put a new foundation under my almost-120-year-old carriage barn. Now I can park two cars in it fear-free.

352/365 Annie

A champagne toast to Annie: A fellow lover of bubbly brut, who can be counted on to show up with a rogue bottle at book group; a woman who should be less countrystuck and more multiple-city lecture tour, talking the environment, history, current events.

351/365 Another Jon

The registrar-turned-curator acted as my personal docent during those early days of my museum job. No one since has both known and cared so well for the collection. I began making Vermont friends by asking him and his girlfriend to go see Spalding Gray.

350/365 Another Greg and Another Cindy

They rode a tandem across the country (a bicycle built for two)
They rode a tandem across the country (from northwest to southeast)
They rode a tandem across the country (before Meghan came along)
A tandem across the country
And they are still married.

349/365 Daniela

She’s from Brescia, not far from Sergio. She’s the beautiful Italian woman down the street. She’s the ceramicist, mosaicist, artist, mother. When I use a bowl she made, I feel a rush of happiness that this art exists in this world, in this moment.

348/365 Another Brian

I wish you happiness, certainly, but when I open the newspaper and see you and your new wife and baby portraying the Holy Family, my heart achesalittle for your ex-wife: my friend who loved you, whether you were right for each other or not.

347/365 Stuart

It’s like I’ve had my accountant bronzed. He’s moved past potential snowbird to full-time southern status, still spending some northerly weeks servicing his loyal Vermont clientele. Should I trust such a happy guy—sporting a new, almost-spiky haircut and deepening tan—with my money?

346/365 A Third Kim

She’s basically got me in a hammerlock. It’s tough for anyone to really get under my scapula, even oiled up, as my neck/shoulder area tends to double as petrified forest, so she uses her elbow for best results. Her hand seems small in mine.

345/365 Greg

My neighbor and I were born the same year in the same state, which makes me feel an immediate, if illogical, affinity. We might’ve been tight in (hypothetical) high school, if, say, I’d gotten (hypothetically) extroverted enough to be cool.

One lung; still smokes.

344/365 A Fifth Chris

My favorite story about Chris is this: When Alison visited, he met her at the neighborhood subway. They’re so white, somebody asked if they were lost. “I tried to get Thelma to come along for blackup,” he tells Ali, “but she was too tired.”

343/365 A Fourth Susan

An infinitely resourceful woman who can rise to any occasion, her rainy-day wedding was a great celebration. I had fabulous conversations with fascinating people. And until she mentioned it herself, I had no idea that this radiant beauty was suffering a violent stomach flu.

342/365 Liban

Beautiful Mogadishu, scrawls an artist on t-shirts. NPR’s story sparks memory of Liban, yh’s Somali lover and recipient of a love of my own: my blue Schwinn, my only wheels from teens til twenty-three. That sweet ride took us places we had to be.

341/365 Another Rich

Epiphany 2007, 9:30 a.m., Vermont. Sixty degrees. We meet on crisscross journeys to the post office. The weather’s weird, welcome, worrisome. He loves it, but locals are losing their livelihood. His bartender-self observation: “I shouldn’t be standing around on a Friday night in January.”

340/365 A Fourth David

was my swimming-pool buddy during Nixon’s last hot, sweaty, nerve-racking months. I spent all summer wishing he (David) would kiss me already, but at its (summer’s) end, when he was saying goodbye for good, the attempt shocked me, and my shyness turned my cheek.

339/365 Randall,

Tim’s former-crush clone, works her own letterpress, champions a woman’s right to choose, once sent me to the family’s private spring creeks where, when my 2-a.m. bladder forced me out of the tent, I got sucked into the vast expanse of wild Montana stars.

338/365 A Fourth Paul

We met repeatedly—but only—on the Dance Flurry floor. He had a mean swing, and his signature move was a full dip at swing’s end. Exhilarating. Last I swung him, he was on his way to seminary. Truly a man of some god.

337/365 Another Anna

is a songwriter for hire. She interviews clients, then takes their joy, their pain, their hopes, dreams, inspirations, disappointments, and sorrows and carefully crafts the song that reflects all that needs singing. Serious as this often is, she sports a wicked sense of humor.

336/365 Mary Kay

In high school, on certain topics, it is better to be silent than wrong. When she played CSNY’s “Woodstock” cover (recorded when we were 8ish) in Bible as Lit class and said Name that band, I couldn’t bring myself to volunteer the [correct] information.

335/365 Ewart

The native Belizean fishing guide put up well enough with my seasickness and let me out in the shallows when I had to pee. Squatting, I spied an octopus, which Ewart scooped up in a net, letting us watch as it rapidly changed colors.