My plan yesterday was to hunker down at my desk like an editing mule. Instead, the phone kept ringing, I stood in line at  the bank for eons, the cat would not stop pestering me . . .  Maybe today will be more productive.

The snow is arriving slowly. Overnight we got another inch or two, and it's supposed to keep snowing all day. Schools are canceled, plow trucks are bustling, but not much is happening as of yet. If I can get enough done at my desk today, and am not overwhelmed by shoveling chores, I'll take a walk out into the snowy streets and admire the scenery. This neighborhood has a lot of early twentieth-century houses that look postcardy in a fresh snow.

I woke up in the night feeling oppressed by not writing, and I am trying to push that fret away. What I need now, really, is some open time to sort through poems and tinker with a manuscript. I've got an enormous stack that needs to be winnowed and thinned into something readable. But there's no open time on the horizon. I've got lots of editing to do, teaching to plan, a day up north next week, and then the college boy comes home for Christmas. I may or may not need to drive to Vermont to fetch him; I'll certainly need to get him back after the New Year. And in the meantime we'll be in Massachusetts for the holiday . . .

In short: poems do not fit into the schedule. But they are kicking and screaming and complaining about it.