210 of 210 : Craig

Good heart, good mind, good spirit. Fat—too fat—body, but working on it. I think he’s in a good place in his life, more centered, more content. It’s funny—there are a lot more years behind him than in front, yet what he feels most is . . . hopeful. Everything’s possible.

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Th-th-th-that's all, folks. I've reached the end of this lovely, enjoyable, communal writing experiment. I'm going to keep the blog up for a while, but I hope you'll check out my new blog, Notes from the Dreamtime. We'll be live at 2 p.m. today. Stop by and give me your feedback!

209 of 210 : Smith

My great-grandfather (Smith was his given name) was repairing the roof of his chicken coop at age 88 when he fell. He broke his hip, was hospitalized, and within two months developed renal failure and died. I never got to meet him, but he remains the backbone of our family.

208 of 210 : Jane #2

I can’t tell you how much I admire this woman. Thoroughly independent, even solitary, living life completely on her own terms. Creative, vigorous, with a fine mind and an open heart. I hope I can be half as hardy and accomplished at her age (here's hoping I last that long!).

207 of 210 : Jane #1

Her dogs are always LOUD. She is always LOUD. A large, brash, fiercely intelligent woman, and one of the founders of Ms., she’s also a JP and an incredibly active presence in the town. But much as I admired and liked her, she wasn’t someone you could just relax with.

206 of 210 : Ed

A born-and-bred old Middletowner who sold honey from his own hives and impossibly cheap seasoned firewood from his groves. Though his was one of the town’s founding families, I think he was on the outs with them: when he talked about stepping in some manure, he substituted the family name.

205 of 210 : Matthew Perry

Never met him. Or the host of other actors who persistently find their way into my dreams. I’m not dreaming about Matthew Perry; he just does a cameo appearance as, say, an obnoxious salesman. Last month it was Kevin Kline as a theater usher, and Oprah as a golf pro.

203 and 204 of 210 : Emily and Danna

When Emily’s niece died, the pastor ended the memorial service by inviting her nonreligious relatives to stand and give their lives to Jesus; when they didn’t, he berated them: “I hope you remember this as the day you rejected Christ, because you’ll never see Vickie again.”

When Danna’s great-grandmother died, one of granny’s sons was in prison, but was allowed to attend the funeral in shackles. When the family Pentecostals started wailing hysterically, he seized the opportunity and fled, shackles and all. Few noticed, however, since at that moment an obese grieving relative collapsed on the coffin and toppled it.

202 of 210 : Thelonious

One Step Down was legendary. Long and narrow, with perpetual clouds of cigarette smoke and the sweetest jazz you've ever heard. One night I ended up there and was invited to sit and drink with a couple of Thelonious Monk's old bandmembers, who shared stories of his talent and temper.

201 of 210 : Mr. Otter

Darryl and Janet’s home backs onto a fairly new manmade lake, which made the appearance this afternoon of “Mr. Otter,” as they called him, all the more surprising. An actual otter, lying on his back, sunning himself unconcernedly on the bank. Now they’re on Otter Watch, cameras at the ready.

A cousin, perhaps?

200 of 210 : Louise

Junior high dances were absolute torture. When people wasn’t dancing, they were sucking face with their dates. Ick. So I took Louise, a plain, painfully shy little thing who thought I’d given her the world by asking her out. We were each other’s bulwarks against the horrors of adolescent society.

199 of 210 : Isaac

Everyone else called him Mr. Asimov, but she called him Uncle Isaac. A close friend of her family, I heard stories about their dinners together, laughing, her father arguing genially with him about how far one could bend science fact in the making of fiction. He always remembered her birthday.

198 of 210 : Another Shirley

The village was full of generally friendly people. But the proprietor of the other general store in town was sour, taciturn, cold. I made her my special little project. It took two months of near-daily visits, but I finally got her to smile and even be the tiniest bit chatty.

197 of 210 : Mr. Bunting

As assistant headmaster he could have had me arrested for breaking and entering, or suspended or expelled, but he seemed to understand my need to read my Permanent File that he kept in his office. Mainly I wanted to get the results of the IQ test they had recently administered.

196 of 210 : The Jehovah’s Witnesses

Dressed in Sunday finery, clutching Bibles and copies of The Watchtower and Awake!, they appear. “Oh, no,” I say, “we have our own faith, and we’re very careful not to stray from it!” “Not straying from the faith” is a prime JW tenet, so it flusters them greatly. Most effective.

[By the way, Tony’s wife and dog appeared today—a little ahead of schedule, but we’re having a cool spell, so maybe it confused her. The dog is a little larger, and she’s stopped dying her hair (it’s mousy brown and gray now), but her voice can still echo for blocks.]

195 of 210 : Earl

My great-uncle loved practical jokes. At his mother’s 92nd birthday, he gave her a diamond ring to replace her old wedding band, but in the presentation speech, he said it was because she had never actually been married. I can still remember her shock, her laughter, and her great joy.

194 of 210 : Robert

The organization's parking lot attendant / maintenance worker. Stoic, upright, a man of few words. He died so suddenly, riddled with an unusual cancer. Exposure to chemical weapons in the Gulf War? Secret military testing on black soldiers? Heartbreakingly, a definite possibility. And easier to accept than an inexplicable natural death.

193 of 210 : Kiki

Our junior high school “bad girl.” I watched her change from a sweet (but slightly dim) girl in elementary school to a biker chick who distributed sexual favors like candy from a piñata, despite a pleasant and stable home life. She’s now a quite respectable mother with . . . a teenage daughter.

192 of 210 : Doris

For a few horrible years I managed fast food restaurants. My trainer at one point was Doris, a ball-breaker whose unpleasant demeanor was matched only by her over-the-top lust for some of her female workers. She said she wanted a t-shirt from Wendy’s, whose motto at the time was “Hot-n-Juicy!”

(Not Doris, but a reasonable facsimile of her.)

191 of 210 : J.C.

Beanpole tall, he was the big cheese at the telemarketing firm. Well, almost the big cheese. There was a main supervisor-cum-stick-in-the-mud, but J.C. ruled the roost with his boundless charm, and his workers were extraordinarily loyal. Unethical as the day is long, as was he, but great to party with.

190 of 210 : Melissa #2

Little slip of a thing. Buzz cut, nearly bald. Tight-fitting black clothes, much of it leather, with prominent silver accoutrements. A marvelous brain: funny, with a cutting wit and a keen intelligence. My first words to her: “Hey, didn’t I see you in V for Vendetta”? Cue her wonderful laugh. . . .

189 of 210 : Dana

After the workshop, I asked the instructor if he’d like to see some manatees. We went to a lagoon where they frequently gather, and I flopped onto the dock and reached into the water. Dana was amazed to see one large fellow roll over so I could pat his belly.

188 of 210 : Jody

She’s a proud papa-to-be: her partner, Tracey, will be attempting to conceive at her next ovulation. Names already chosen. Because the hospitals charge such outrageous amounts for artificial inseminations, they’re going to do it the old-fashioned way: Jody will use a turkey baster, and Tracey will stand on her head.

187 of 210 : The Rabbi

He may have looked like Harvey Fierstein, but it was a lovely Kol Nidre service. The only thing that threw me was when he wished me a “Gut Yontiff.” Adam kindly translated it into Hebrew for me: yontiff is Yiddish for yom tov, a good day—that is, a holiday.

(Harvey, not Rabbi Natkin)

186 of 210 : Martha

An Internet pal of mine is a prodigious knitter. She knitted lovely scarves, in “Princess pink,” for everyone to wear to Princess’s memorial, and even sent one to those of us who couldn’t attend. After she saw The Last Knit, she decided that knitting indoors might be a good idea.