Yesterday was nose to the grindstone [what an unpleasant image that is; imagine how your nose would look afterward]--editing, editing, editing--and today, I hope, will usher in the magic moment when the big project leaps from my computer to the author's. Welcome to the holiday season, when freelancers try to shove everything out the door and authors and press editors try to shove everything back in. Everyone wants clean desks for Christmas.

Meanwhile, T will hardly be home for the next few days. Straight after work, he's got to rush to the gallery and start erecting displays for this Friday's big photo auction gala, a lavish event that his photo co-op sponsors each December. Tons of artists contribute, tons of people attend, and T is in the thick of it. So I won't be making dinner for the next couple of nights, just tooling around doing my own stuff and warming up leftovers. Probably I'll try to catch up on some holiday baking, wrap presents to ship to Vermont, that kind of thing. This is an odd week, with lots of alone-time in the house, and I should make the most of it.

Outside, a crust of snow shimmers under the streetlights. I hope to go for a walk this morning, before I settle down to work. I barely stepped outside the door yesterday, and now I've got a yearning for wind and birds. Lately the hawks have been so busy, sailing hungrily over the trees. Crows flock in the maples, and gulls line the roof ridges, all standing on one leg and staring moodily toward the bay. I want to be out and about among them.

I've nearly finished the collection of William Trevor stories. Close to 600 pages of instruction: it's been fascinating to ponder one ending after another, one beginning after another. He's very quiet in what he does, and very purposeful. Chekhov comes to mind.

I want to be better at what I do. I always want to be better at what I do. But of course I do what I do because I am who I am. Trevor's stories are a good reminder of that. His subjects are few, but his frames constantly shift, subtly, inexorably. Always there's another angle of sight.