This is a story that never took place.

The pelican was flying almost touching the sea when it saw it. It was an orange fish, static, pensive, gone. Climbed up high in the sky and flew downwards to swallow it but it couldn't. The fish was interesting enough to turn on the pelican's curiosity alarms. It stopped and slowly begun to float on the salty water. The fish noticed the pelican. It smiled, it was the most beautiful creature it had seen, pretty close to a deity, a myth it heard once.

Last Saturday I visited a used book store in Port Jefferson, New York. It was cold and blustery... a perfect day to wander the stacks without a plan. Smitten with the colorful covers and straightforward titles in my immediate view, I found myself in the section, ANIMALS, for a good long time.

I have known since last Friday that part (if not all) of this week was going to be occupied by jury duty. This being the fifth time I've been called during my life, I knew careful consideration needed to be given to how I was going to fill the long periods of waiting that this type of service entails. Here is my to-do list which was compiled before and then adjusted during the experience.

This was the theme of the cooking class that my husband and I attended this evening. We received a gift certificate for the class as a Christmas gift. With a title like "Valentines in Venice", one would expect there to be some attempt at making the atmosphere somewhat romantic, even if it is supposed to be a class.

The cold weather has arrived and that's made some of our contributors nostalgic. But the return of winter hasn't stopped us from seeing, doing and thinking. This digest covers ground from existentialism to dissatisfaction and many things in between.

Paul Pereira looked out his apartment window while Alice Marie witnessed the territorial rituals of the Long-Island Blowhard. Guido Alvarez wondered "who controls the show," wasn't sure about love and would also like to flush his brain. Mark Sanders found a better use for junkmail, shared what makes him laugh and watched the Stars align on ice. Sandie Maxa showed how to re-purpose public space while Heather Manske wanted a day off due to weather.

Have a great weekend and tell a friend about GUTSY.

I really need to get off this island (that, being Long Island). I can’t say that this morning’s attempt to get caffeinated cemented my decision to move to the city in the Fall, but I’m now fairly certain that my mental health is too precariously balanced to survive another year in the white-flight strip mall, I mean suburb, that stretches almost unbroken from the edge of Queens to the Hamptons.

I get a lot of junk mail. Every day I open and then promptly throw out four to six envelopes worth of mail. Today I thought I would try to get something more out of this disposable communication than my regular complaining and paper cuts. And so I proudly present a Mad-Lib based on one of the offers for your hopeful entertainment.