The little northern city by the sea is settling into cold January, yet the ground is bare. We've only had a single shovel-worthy snowstorm this season, and that one was barely worth shoveling. I hate seeing the bare-dirt garden: snow is such a good insulator, and all of this freezing and thawing can't be good for roots. Still, the lack of snow has meant easy walking--no ice or slush to contend with as I stride into in the wind. And there's been so much wind: every day is another bluster.

Yesterday was pretty quiet: a slow start on the couch; then reading and writing and catching up on work stuff; then a fast walk in the wind before I made noodle bowls for dinner. Today I'll wash sheets and towels, clean bathrooms, water plants, maybe glance at the Bills game.

In between pecking away at a poem draft, I forced myself to send out a couple of submissions, query a couple of non-responders, fill out a grant application, update my publisher on publicity stuff, etc. After I get back from NY I've got a spate of readings and events ahead of me, including a TV interview that I have been trying to ostrichize under the trashcans in the back alleys of my brain but is in truth making me quite nervous. I've also got a convention presentation to prepare for in March, an on-stage conversation to prepare for in April, a weekend zoom class to teach in February, plus I'll be back on the Monson treadmill and probably facing a new stack of editing. And I can't forget the the teaching conference in July.

Oy.

Well, anyway, first things first. Teresa and I are all set for next Saturday's zoom class, the NY trip will be delightful/heartbreaking, I've got a sociable week ahead of me, even before I leave for the city, and what I need to do in my "spare" hours is concentrate on the following week's high school planning and assume I'll figure out everything else eventually.

But for the moment it's Sunday morning, still early, still dark. I am the only body awake and a poem is bubbling in my thoughts. 

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On another note: BID, the play that my son Paul is directing, opens on Tuesday at the Tank, 312 W. 36th Street in Manhattan. Shows run from January 7 through January 12. Both the director and the playwright, Nick Hennessy, are graduates of Bennington College. Nick is currently a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. Paul has been a props artisan and stagehand in a number of Off-Broadway productions and works in the props department at the Manhattan School of Music.