It's dark out and I am watching the lights of the cars on the bridge. I am thinking about the times my father beat me. It was not often, but notable in the suddenness, the viciousness. The boy comes into the room, wobbling an arc on his way to the back balcony. I show him the fog pouring over the the shoulder of the mountain, how it moves in front of the full moon.

Today is the New York Times fall fashion magazine. There are 94 pages of ads before you even get to the index of articles. The regular Sunday Style section has pictures of handbags, and more handbags, and a article about a woman who is spending a year of her life trying to live by Oprah Winfrey's tenets. How to dress, how to resolve fights with her husband, what products to use to dye her hair. A photo accompanying the piece is a coffee mug with an Oprah quote on it "live your own dream."

I don't know how to sew these things together. I am not sure what is relevant . Here is classic beauty and contemporary blindness like two shades occluding each other. I don't know what to make of it.