The rain has paused. But there's more on the way for the weekend, maybe mixed with a swirl of snow, and the wind has swung around to cold.

Obligation Friday is upon me. I've got an eye appointment first thing this morning, plus it's recycling day and sheet-washing day. I need to meet with an author about her edited manuscript, and I need to clean the downstairs rooms. I have a poem draft burning a hole in my notebook and no idea about what to make for dinner.

Yesterday I did something I haven't done in ages, which was submit some new poems to journals. I read an Updike novel and thought about a William Matthews poem, and I did planks and squats and pushups and baked a cake for a party. But I didn't go for a walk, and I need to do that today, in this cold gray wind, in this March penance weather, all rushing air and road grit.

I'm feeling slightly blue, for no reason I can pinpoint. Maybe I'm just still sleepy or haven't yet conquered the laziness that underlies all of my dutiful bustle. Let's call my gloom The Drama of Being Ambitious; or, The Fate of the Household Poet. The narrative might make an excellent Restoration comedy. Or perhaps Moliere could rhyme something cutting about me.