House thermometer reads -10. Car thermometer reads -19. Shall I choose stoicism or exaggeration as this morning's weather philosophy? According to Melville, "A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it." But then again, "what to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but Loose-Fish?" With such advice, I've decided to settle for merely being cold.

Speaking of difficult-to-understand commentary, my friend Thom just mailed me Bret Lott's article "Humble Flannery," which appeared in a recent Writer's Chronicle. I haven't yet made my way into very much of it, but already Flannery is full of vim and ire. For instance:

The idea of being a writer attracts a good many shiftless people, those who are merely burdened by poetic feelings or afflicted with sensibility.

A comment like that is the aspiring writer's version of dropping your glove into a barnyard water bucket when the temperature is 19 degrees below zero. It's possible that those words might make you a tougher, stronger writer. More likely, you'll freeze to death where you stand.