I was so ready for two thousand four to be over that I started writing two thousand five on checks last September. Now, in the actual two thousand five, the world seems the same. I am different, though: more focused, more productive. I owe it, mostly, to the little green book, which (I am convinced) climbs onto my pillow and whispers things into my ear at night.

Secret things.

Last night, I slept for the first time in our new New York apartment. It is small and unfamiliar, but at the same time cozy and absolutely right. This morning, Rob and I took Goblin down to Carl Schurz Park by the East River. It was the first time I had ever been there, and I was actually rather in awe of it, not because of the majestic mayor’s mansion or the fancy landscaping but because it was the setting for my favorite book ever written: Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh. As Goblin prowled in search of squirrels to conquer, I imagined Harriet strolling the paths with Ole Golly or sitting, alone and mortified, on a bench as the Spy Catchers’ Club paraded by waving a pair of purple socks.

Harriet was me, I thought . . . or who I would be if I had grown up a privileged eleven-year-old girl on the Upper East Side instead of a middle-class boy in the Maryland suburbs.

And yet, I’m here now, on the Upper East Side; not so privileged, but still, I hope, as curious about what makes the world work, fascinated by what makes people do the things they do.

Someone in the apartment upstairs is singing off-key.

The little green book is in my messenger bag, waiting to creep out in the dark of night and clamber up onto the bed.

It is two thousand five.