I have not stopped reading Babbitt, but I don't know why because the book isn't getting any better. Perhaps it will come in useful when I need to write an essay about second-rate novels. It may even come in useful in this Daphne du Maurier piece I'm working on, although I don't quite know how.

Until today I'd been feeling frustrated about the du Maurier essay, but all of a sudden it seems to be coming together. Of course, I had to eliminate three-quarters of what I'd written and drink a lot of coffee before I discovered where I'd gone wrong, but oh well.

Yesterday I started watering in my greenhouse. There is nothing like the perfume of wet, thawing soil, especially when you're looking out the window at 2 feet of snow on the ground. I bet people will start tapping maple trees soon. The light is changing, the chickadees are singing, the driveway is coated in ice, and in two months the snow will melt. It's almost like thinking about spring.

Dinner tonight: minestrone, and it already smells good.