We got more snow than was forecast--maybe six or seven inches of tender fluff--and it's angelic out there in the neighborhood, and also very cold. We're in for a snap this week, temperature dropping down to single digits by the weekend, so the snow is here to stay, at least for a while. Finally, maybe, we're getting our Maine winter.

I made it to the grocery stores early yesterday, before the snow really kicked in; then spent the bulk of the day editing and working on Monson Arts stuff, until midafternoon, when I lit the wood stove, shoveled the driveway, and then whipped up a batch of blackberry sorbet. It came out well: not too grainy, which can be a problem with homemade sorbets. Dinner was braised chicken legs with fennel and lemon, roasted potatoes with sage, and a salad of chioggia beets, toasted pecans and pumpkin seeds, and butter lettuce. I like a bright table on a snowy night.

And now Wednesday has arrived. I sit here, in my warm house, under my pool of lamplight, wondering where my mind will wander today. I've started rereading Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. I'm still swallowing novels like they're quaaludes, and maybe Austen will settle me down . . . her sly undertones, her exquisite Mozart touch. I've got stuff to finish--class prep, editing--and I don't trust myself to be sensible. What I ought to do, I suppose, is read Henry James. He'd bring me back into line, force me to be patient. But I'm not in the mood for patience.

Anyway, enough of this maundering. It's time to start a load of laundry; it's time to make the bed; it's time to wash the breakfast dishes and sweep the kitchen floor and do my exercises and eat oatmeal and type out a syllabus and embody the role of the productive worker. America is not designed for story-drunks.