It will be cold today, the coldest we've seen so far this season:  highs in the 20s and, at night, a plummet toward single digits. I suppose this means my arugula is well and truly dead, but the salad garden certainly had a good run this year--fresh greens from April to December, without a greenhouse or even a cold frame. And the kale and collards are still hanging on.

I finished that manuscript review yesterday. Today I've got meetings in the morning and the afternoon, and tomorrow I'll climb down into a new editing hole. But, on the bright side, I did have a long conversation with the director of Monson Arts yesterday, who is working to set up some teaching opportunities for early 2021. I know the Frost Place is also planning to host some more online workshops. So maybe I won't be perpetually chained to grammar pedantry.

Nonetheless, I'm feeling a little disheartened this morning. Last night's Zoom poetry-group session was weird, mostly because my wifi was acting up, so commentary kept being truncated in strange and unnerving ways. The conversation felt errant and ominous, as if everyone else knew something I didn't. It was like being surrounded by high school backbiters, and yet in real life these are good and friendly people, and the problem was entirely technical.

So this morning, without reason or logic, I'm cloaked in that old familiar social-outcast feeling, and I wish it would go away.