I woke up this morning to the ticking of sleet on the window, followed by Paul's boing-squeal-boing alarm clock, the sound of his bare feet stalking to the back door, the sound of his bare feet stalking back to bed. When I went downstairs to inform him that, thus far, school had not been canceled, he stared at me impassively. "You go look outside," he said. "There's no school today." He was right. We've got five inches of sleet on the ground and it's still coming down strong. Even in Maine, this kind of weather makes no-school a pretty safe bet.

I guess I'll start baking gingerbread boys today.

And I should tell you: that essay I killed yesterday? . . . it turned out to be an embryo poem. Apparently I have another big one on my hands.