Finally, after two bad sleeping nights, I managed to capture an entire one to myself. I am much refreshed, which is a good thing, because I was definitely crossing over into "limp and wilted" yesterday evening.

The class went well, I think: exciting poems, busy chat, everyone seems to be getting along, and what more could I ask?

I'm not sure what's on the docket for today. Exercise class and bread baking and house stuff and Christmas errands, maybe some Frost Place stuff too, but I'm on editing hiatus till next week, so the hours are mostly mine. That probably means copying out Dante, reading Margaret Drabble's The Radiant Way, fiddling with poems, going for walks, staring through windows. Writers do so much lazy puttering. No wonder we can't get paid.

Oy, look at what I'm doing. Here I am with a week to myself (mostly), and I can't even embrace it without belittling myself and my vocation. Don't be me. Snatch your hours and waste them gloriously. Wallow in solitude. Don't turn on the TV (unless it's part of your project). Don't agree to babysit your grandchild or distract yourself into baking food that no one needs to eat (unless they're part of your project). Lie on the couch with a stack of books, scribble lines, say them out loud in the same happy voice you use to read aloud a note from your best friend, fall into a doze and wake up again, fidget with lines, walk outside to look at how the sky's coming along, do not complain about the weather (unless that's part of your project), try the crazy experiment of bashing two drafts into one. Write a poem that's twice as long as what you usually write. Take out all of the punctuation. Put different punctuation back in. Rewrite the poem backward. Take another nap. Copy out a famous poem you have never liked. Do not post anything on Facebook (unless that's part of your project). Print out your poem draft and randomly cut it up with scissors. Spread the parts all over the table and play with sticking them together in peculiar order. Go outside and see how the sky is coming along. Etcetera.