One good and/or bad thing about email is that it, unlike the U.S. Postal Service, recognizes no delivery holidays. Nonetheless, I was still rather surprised to receive an acceptance letter on New Year's Day. Happy, mind you. But surprised. Solstice is going to publish two poems, one of which I thought might be unpublishable, so that is particularly gratifying.

In other news, Tom, Paul, and I spent all afternoon filming a super-low-budget version of Godzilla. I started rereading Lampedusa's The Leopard. I made a chocolate cake (Julia Child's reine de saba); Tom made lasagna noodles; I made sauce. All day long we ate leftover meatballs from New Year's Eve. I snowshoed in melting snow. James spent the day holed up in his room like a real teenager, until the rest of us started watching a Marx Brothers' movie.

Dinner tonight: some sort of concoction involving red beans, leftover ham, and ancho peppers.