Yesterday was an unexpected flurry of weather--snow, sleet, rain, slush; the streets and sidewalks a sudden slippery wretched mess.

Thus, I haven't taken a walk for two days, I missed my last couple of exercise sessions because of work schedule and a visitor, and I'm beginning to feel like a yam. Today I'll spend all afternoon in a chair, teaching a class; and though I'd hoped to walk to the university library where we'll be meeting, road conditions may be against me. Blah.

Ah, well. At least I can run up and down two flights of stairs and haul a vacuum cleaner around. Housework, the endurance sport.

Otherwise, what's new? Not much, I guess. Cackling over Trump's $83 million defamation verdict, drinking tea with an old friend, starting a new novel (Patrick White's The Aunt's Story), reading some Longfellow, copyediting a manuscript, fiddling around with a poem draft, braising teriyaki chicken, losing at cards . . .

And now the cat is curled up on his yellow chair, T is asleep upstairs. Outside, crows argue with jays; gulls argue with crows. Pale slush is spilt milk under this dim morning light.

I am trying to be a decent person. But who knows?