I spent most of New Year's Day clearing Christmas out of my house--vacuuming, dusting, emptying cans, emptying cupboards, all in hopes of snagging today for myself.
Were today to go as imagined, I would be copying out poems (say, Hughes, Dickinson, Lawrence, Herbert, Millay, Shakespeare), reading Sybille Bedford's A Legacy, reading Nasaw's biography of Carnegie, musing over W. Eugene Smith's photographs of the Pittsburgh coke industry, mooning around the house and staring out the window, drinking another cup of tea, writing five words, writing six words, writing four words. . . .

But today is just as likely not to go as imagined because the goat, who is typically the queen of greed, has stopped eating. Yesterday morning I dosed her with vegetable oil to move along whatever ruminant blockage might exist (not a simple task with a strong, cranky goat who weighs more than I do), and by late afternoon she showed signs of improvement. But having not yet laid eyes on her today, I am steeled for bad news. C'est la vie with elderly livestock on cold, cold January dawns.

Goat update: I can't say she looks exactly overjoyed, but one might chalk that up to the zero-degree morning. She is, however, chewing her cud, and with ruminants that is always a promising sign. I'm thinking that my day has a chance of being almost as selfish as I'd imagined it.