1. Today is December 9. I live in central Maine. The 45th parallel runs through my living room. Johnny-jump-ups are blooming in my garden. Something is wrong here.

2. College essay update: In what I hope will be the penultimate pass through J's essay, I finally laid a finger on the piece, which is to say I marked it up with queries without actually correcting anything myself. The queries ranged from typo notation, to grammatical inquiries, to questions about specific details. As with the other revisions, I emailed it to him, but this time he asked me to sit down with him and discuss each point of contention. In one or two places he was adamant and/or crabbily defensive about his original wording. His father, who was washing dishes and also hates having his writing marked up, chimed in on my side of the debate, which was a surprise. This made J slightly less defensive but still fairly crabby. Having reached this impasse, we closed up our computers, and he immediately fell into 12 hours of coma-like slumber. Last night he claimed to have revised the essay and emailed it to me; but as of this moment, no email has actually appeared. Thus, I cannot reveal his final decision. Whatever the case, the time has come for us all to let this piece go and make the best of imperfection. Here's hoping the admissions officers do as well. There are numerous interesting tidbits in the essay, he's seventeen years old, and how much delight can they honestly expect?

3. A soupcon of Milly Jourdain: Because I have to play Christmas carols for hours and hours tomorrow, I may have no available fingers for typing a blog post. So I'll give you the next two Milly poems. As the only living experts on her oeuvre, what do you think?

Beacon Hill

Milly Jourdain

I hear the deep sea sounding through the pines,

I breathe the wash of air, all cold and clear

And know the peace that lives among the stones

With nothing near.

And then I try to see my little life,

The huge and quiet earth around me spread,

And blue hills far away, that make me feel

Without a dread.

The freshness of this scene is with me still

--In Memory's freshness that can never wane--

And all the music of the many pines

I hear again.

A Phantom Sea

Milly Jourdain

We saw from dull suburban streets

A sudden space of light--

A level line of misty hills

And shiny spots of white.

O how it made me long to feel

The sea was really there

The sharp wind blowing on my face

And sea-sounds in the air!

The hills are like my shadowed life

Where only I can sea

The waves and white sailed ships that float

On its immensity.