My sonnet "Dog in Winter" was featured in yesterday's Take Heart poetry column in the Portland Press Herald. The column is curated by state poet laureate Wes McNair, who will be printing several other Same Old Story poems over the course of this year. But I had completely forgotten that yesterday was publication day so was taken aback (in a nice way) when I started getting notes and emails about the piece. In the meantime, Tom spent yesterday afternoon in Portland, giving a gallery talk about his current photo show; Paul spent the day reading The Scarlet Letter; and James spent the day on the jury of the Five College Film Festival. Welcome to the Modern Arty Family paper doll set.

Today we return to our regularly scheduled programming. The Half-Assed Arctic Homesteaders paper dolls will be featured in various contemporary scenes: climbing onto the roof to figure out why snowmelt is dripping through an upstairs window frame, wading through five-foot drifts to empty the compost pail, splitting kindling with a dull hatchet, etcetera. They are cleverly clad in a series of ugly wet work coats and have interchangeable red noses and hat hair.