I'm having a hard time shaking this cold. After starting off as a mere annoyance, it has settled into my sinuses, and now here I am a week later, snuffling and sneezing and feeling like my IQ has dropped 15 points.

But at least it's Saturday morning, and I have no reason to rush around--though the Vermont chaos continues, and I've already taken a 6 a.m. phone call about that. The guilt of distance. It's a particular sort of black cloud.

Nonetheless, despite chaos and sinusitis, it's Valentine's Day, and shortly I'll walk out to buy my Valentine a ham-and-cheese croissant from the French bakery down the street, and tonight we're going out to dinner with friends. The good things are still good.

Over the past couple of days I've been rereading A. S. Byatt's novel The Game, rereading stacks of my own poems, planning various classes and presentations, trying to think ahead, think ahead, think ahead. This time next week I'll be in New York, the Florida residency looms, and then the MCELA event, and in between all of this travel my Monson classes will continue apace. I am nervous about everything.