10:22 a.m. Today we're having a party, and I'm going to do a work in progress here on the net for as long as I can stand it. I got up at 9-ish, after going to bed at around 4 in the morning. Blithered out a photo for Christmas, a few messed-up links, and that was all I could manage.

I'd been cooking most of the late evening, and I'm glad I did because I would like to share with you my number one recurring nightmare, which almost -- and I mean it -- almost just came true.

I'm a writer. I know that now. I wasn't so sure before, and I especially didn't think I could write unless I had absolute demanding privacy and concentration and a stretch of time in which to think. Life has a way of denying me those moments, and so I was having a lot of nightmares about a wasted life, a life unremarked and unwritten.

The nightmares are always the same -- a whole bunch of people are coming over and I've screwed up with the meat. The main course. Either I forget it or I don't have enough or I forget to take it out of the freezer or the oven's broken and ...

... and guess what?

We both of us misread the directions on the turkey wrapper and in The Joy of Cooking and I just now barely got that sucker into the oven and basted and starting to cook. In real life. This is real life and I am facing my greatest fear. That I can't deliver. That there is no meat to what I do. That it is raw and inedible.

Can you imagine?

I mean, I've got the bows ironed and the salad washed and torn and the stupid salsa things all arranged, but for God's sake: the main course! Anyway, I just did the calculations and it's 23 pounds by 25 minutes divided by 60 minutes and it comes to: 10 hours of cooking time.

So. if you're reading this and you're heading my way this evening with a nice healthy appetite and a sense of adventure, please be advised that the turkey is not going to be on the table until 8-ish, no matter what.

To tide you over, I've got some really wonderful negus.

More later ... if my wits remain.

The table is pretty, and ready, and waiting.

I've planned ahea ...