Cold

There isn't much one can do in this extreme cold. It was -24.5 today. Needless to say, we stayed in. I am unable to work well, as yet, but I'm gearing up for it.

I finished Maddam and that felt like accomplishment enough. It wasn't my favourite book of the trilogy, although I'm not sure why. Zeb wasn't my cup of tea, I guess, and I can't get around the name Toby . . . and hope Atwood didn't choose the name because of a fellow grad student I knew who met the grand ole dame during a conference we organized in her honour. This student was manipulative and unkind . . . and threw me under the bus to forward her own career aspirations, so I certainly hope this heroine of Atwood's wasn't named after her . . . one has to admit it is an unusual name. Anyway . . . that's done . . .I can move back into the genre of the term, short fiction. I picked up America's Best at the Hudson Bookstore at the New York airport, so I can start that now.

Reading by the fire is about all I can manage . . . until everything starts again and I lose track of time and myself.

At least the light is increasing again . . . and there's only another month or so of extreme cold . . .