maybe hopeless.

I’m having a hard time processing what I am supposed to believe, or if I’m even supposed to. There is too much information, and I don’t like a

lot of it.

And yet, for some reason that al scienti c evidence real y should make impossible, I feel like I real y do hope. I hope that global warming wil

go away. I hope that people won’t be homeless. I hope that su ering wil not exist. I want to believe that my hope is not in vain.

I want to believe that even though I hope for things that are so magnanimous (good OED word, huh?), I am not a bad person because what I

real y want to believe in is purely sel sh.

I want to believe there is a somebody out there just for me. I want to believe that I exist to be there for that somebody.

Remember in Franny and Zooey (which I assume you’ve read and loved, considering the location where you found the Moleskine in the Strand)

how Franny was this girl from the 1950s who freaked out over what’s the meaning of life because she thought it was embedded in a prayer

someone told her about? And even though neither her brother Zooey nor her mom understood what Franny was going through, I think I real y did.

Because I would like the meaning of life explained to me in a prayer, and I would probably ip out, too, if I thought the possibility of at aining

this prayer existed, but was out of my reach of understanding. (Especial y if being Franny meant I’d also get to wear lovely vintage clothes,

although I’m dubious on whether I’d want the Yale boyfriend named Lane who’s possibly a bit of a prick but people admire me for going out with

him; I think I’d rather be with someone more … er … arcane.) At the end of the book, when Zooey cal s Franny pretending to be their brother

Buddy, trying to cheer her up, there’s a line where he talks about Franny going to the phone and becoming “younger with each step” as she

walked, because she’s making it to the other side. She’s going to be okay. At least that’s what I took it to mean.

I want that. The get ing younger with each step, because of anticipation, in hope and belief.

Prayer or not, I want to believe that, despite al evidence to the contrary, it is possible for anyone to nd that one special person. That person to

spend Christmas with or grow old with or just take a nice sil y walk in Central Park with. Somebody who wouldn’t judge another for the

prepositions they dangle, or their run-on sentences, and who in turn wouldn’t be judged for the snobbery of their language etymology inclinations.

(Gotcha with the word choices, right? I know, sometimes I surprise even myself.)

Belief. That’s what I want for Christmas. Look it up. Maybe there’s more meaning there than I understand. Maybe you could explain it to me?

I had continued writing in the notebook when the train came, and nished my entry just as it arrived at Fifty-ninth and Lex. As the zil ions of

people, along with me, poured out of the train and up into Bloomingdale’s or the street, I concentrated hard on not thinking about what I was

determined not to think about.

Moving. Change.

Except I wasn’t thinking about that.

* * *

I dodged Bloomingdale’s, walking straight toward FAO Schwarz, where I realized what Snarl had meant by “payback.” A line down the street

outside the store greeted me—a line just to get into the store! I had to wait twenty minutes just to reach the door.

But no mat er what, I love Christmas, real y real y real y I do, don’t care if I am sardined in between two mil ion panicky Christmas shoppers,

nope, don’t care at al , I loved every moment of the experience once I got inside—the jingle bel s playing from the speakers, the heart-racing

excitement at seeing al the colorful toys and games in such a larger-than-life set ing. Aisle after aisle and oor after oor of dense funfun

experience. I mean, Snarl must know me wel already, perhaps on some psychic level, if he’d sent me to FAO Schwarz, only the mecca of

everything that was Great and Beautiful about the holidays. Snarl must love Christmas as much as me, I decided.

I went to the information counter. “Where wil I nd the Make Your Own Muppet Workshop?” I asked.

“Sorry,” the counter person said. “The Muppet Workshop is closed for the holidays. We needed the space for the Col ation action gure displays.

”

” “There are action gures for paper and staplers?” I asked. How had I not known to include these on my list to Santa?

“Yup. Just a hint: You might have bet er luck nding the Fredericos and the Dantes at O ce Max on Third Ave. They sold out here the rst day

they went on sale. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

“But please,” I said. “There has to be a Muppet workshop here today. The Moleskine said so.”

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind,” I sighed.

I worked my way past the Candy Shoppe and Ice Cream Parlor and Barbie Gal ery, upstairs past al the boy toys of guns and Lego warlands,

through the mazes of people and products, until I nal y landed in the Col ation corner. “Please,” I said to the salesclerk. “Is there a Muppet

workshop here?”

“Hardly,” she spat. “That’s in April.” She said this with al the contempt of Wel , duh, who doesn’t know that?

“Sorry!” I said. I hoped someone’s parents sent her to Fiji next Christmas.

I was about to give up and leave the store, my belief in the Moleskine defeated, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw a girl

who looked col ege age, dressed like Hermione Pot er. I assumed she was a store employee.

“Are you the girl looking for the Muppet workshop?” she asked.

“I am?” I said. Don’t know why I said it like a question, other than I wasn’t sure I wanted Hermione knowing my business. I’ve always resented

Hermione, because I wanted to be her so badly and she never seemed to appreciate as much as I thought she should that she got to be her. She got

to live at Hogwarts and be friends with Harry and kiss Ron, which was supposed to happen to me.

“Come with me,” Hermione demanded. Since it would be dumb not to do what a smarty like Hermione instructed, I let her guide me to the

farthest, darkest corner of the store, where the stu no one cared about anymore, like Sil y Put y and Boggle games, was. She stopped us at a giant

rack of stu ed gira es and tapped on the wal behind the animals. Suddenly the wal opened, because it was in fact a door camou aged by the

gira es (gira e-o- aged?–must OED that term).

I fol owed Hermione inside to a smal closet-like room where a worktable with Muppet heads and parts (eyes, noses, glasses, shirts, hair, etc.)

was set up. A teenage boy who looked like a human Chihuahua—excitably compact yet larger than life—sat at a card table, apparently waiting for

me.“You’re HER!” he said, pointing to me. “You don’t look at al like I expected even if I didn’t real y imagine how you’d look!” His voice even

sounded like a Chihuahua’s, quivery and hyperactive at the same time, but somehow endearing.

My mother always taught me it was impolite to point.

Since she was in Fiji on her own covert mission and wouldn’t be here to scold, I pointed back at the boy. “I’m ME!” I said.

Hermione shushed us. “Please lower your voices and be discreet! I can only let you have the room for fteen minutes.” She inspected me

suspiciously. “You don’t smoke, do you?”

“Of course not!” I said.

“Don’t try anything. Think of this closet as an airline lavatory. Go about your business, but know that smoke detectors and other devices are

monitoring.”

The boy said, “Terrorist alert! Terrorist alert!”

“Shut up, Boomer,” Hermione said. “Don’t scare her.”

“You don’t know me wel enough to cal me Boomer,” Boomer (apparently) said. “My name’s John.”