I wish I could see without little plastic circles floating on my pupils. I wish I could see the clock radio. I wish I could see the book I'm reading in bed. I wish I could see the person I'm in bed with. I wish I could see the door, the bathroom mirror, the light switch, the faucet. I wish I could see the night sky, the morning sky, the foot of the bed, the floor, my pants in a heap on the floor, the glass of water on the nightstand, the pen & the notebook on the nightstand, the nightstand itself. I wish I could see, in the event of a fire, a national disaster, a natural disaster. I wish I could see the television that would broadcast these events, should they occur. (Are they as likely to occur as the media has us believe?)

I wish I could fall asleep and roll over onto the pillow without smushing my glasses into my face. I wish I could fall asleep and not think about how when I wake up my contacts will be dry and sticky as tacks in my eyes. I wish I could see, I wish I could see, I wish I could see things more than three inches away from my face. I wish I could open my eyes in the morning, and SEE.

I'm glad I can't see. It's the way I know I'm my father's daughter and my grandfather (who I never met)'s granddaughter. It's just that sometimes, I wish I could see.

It is almost spring. I know this because I can smell the rivers that border New York, fishy and briny and coming alive again.

Also because an intensely bright light falls across my bed between the hours of eight and nine in the morning. I think my first floor window is aligned with the sun in such a way that it only receives direct light between early March and late September. During the winter the sun's low angle with respect to the Northern Hemisphere must make it impossible for direct rays to enter my bedroom. But the other day I noticed that the sun was beginning to function as an alarm clock, a device I do not use. Alarms are alarming and stun you into forgetting your dreams.

I was waking up abruptly each morning in what should be the middle of my night and then often falling into a deep, gripping sleep that was harder to shake off at noon. In the summer this is my preferred schedule, since the dusk, dawn and dead of summer nights are my favorites and we now know the midday sun only makes you old before your time. But in the final week of winter, awakening temporarily at eight will not do. I am still hibernating.

Still, each day the sun peers over whatever blocks it in the winter months with a little more confidence in its glare. It's like an assassin, slowly moving into position to send a message job through my right eye.

I take it all back. The commie sex fiend liberals are ruining this country. If a person fondly remembers her childhood bathtimes, if a person feels a special connection in particular to the Sesame Street character of Ernie, if a person still sings all the time the entirety of the song, "Rubber Ducky, You're the One," including all verses, bridge and chorus, and a person goes looking for a Rubber Ducky at a reputable online drugstore, and a person is met with this kind of depraved filth, then it is high time we took the moral temperature of our society. Preferably rectally.

Really, I swear, I just wanted a new Rubber Ducky! A regular Rubber Ducky!

Oh, it just sounds dirtier the more I type it.