I woke up to the sound of the snowplow, then fell asleep again, dreaming I had fallen asleep driving, which was distressing, until I figured out that I had never been in a vehicle at all but had been in bed the whole time.

And now I am awake, with a fire freshly lit and coffee freshly brewed and snow freshly smothering my little seaside city. We are getting socked, and the storm has only just begun.

I'm in a pretty good mood this morning . . . I'm spending a loosey-goosey Saturday in a clean house with my beloved; my little stomach adventure seems to have dissipated; and I talked myself into devoting yesterday to my own poems, not to other people's manuscripts. After all, as I argued with myself, I just got a grant specifically paying me to write instead of work for someone else. Thus, I am required to waste an entire day dithering over ampersands. It's the law.

I'm so glad I did, as both of my new drafts are making me happy. I really need to find time to begin sorting this giant sack of poems into book form, but making them is so exciting that I don't want to imagine ending the project. Also, I ought to send them out to journals, but blah. I wish someone would come to me and say, Can I look at a sheaf of these pieces? And I would say yes, please, and both of our jobs would be easier. But that's not how publishing works.

In the meantime, the air is thick with snow--swirling, dense, purposeful. This is no flurry; it's an onslaught, and I am looking forward to listening to spring training baseball this afternoon, as the drifts pile and the plows scrape and the neighborhood kids shriek.

I've got to work on a newsletter today, and I need to read Donne. Those are my only obligations, beyond laundry and cooking and stoking the stove. Last night I made a beautiful Greek-style pizza, with a thick Sicilian crust, leftover braised lamb, red pepper and purple onion, spinach, tomato, farmer's cheese, and fresh mint. Tonight's menu: baked chicken; cottage-cheese dumplings; and a beet, orange and pecan salad.

By the way, the Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching is now open for applications! Please share far and wide with anyone, teacher or otherwise, who might benefit from a week of intense conversations about poetry as civil and emotional discourse. Guest faculty are the magnificent Tina Cane and Teresa Carson, and we will be in person at Robert Frost's home in Franconia, New Hampshire.