My dreams have been filled with ice. So has the river. I read that it's been disrupting ferry service to New Jersey. The ice in my dreams hasn't caused any problems, transportational or otherwise. They've been quiet dreams; no one in them says very much. They're also slow. Nothing can move very quickly when it's covered in a layer of ice. There was a photograph in the newspaper last week that I think may have started it. A house in Maine caught fire, and as the firemen were spraying the fire out, the water froze all around it, encasing the house in ice. It was terribly pretty, all frostiness and icicles hanging from icicles.

When I wake up there's a drastic change in temperature. The heat in this building seems not to realize that the temperature has risen, and continues to blast away. On most mornings, it's stronger than the air from the open windows. I guess the strain of working so hard is too much for it sometimes, because this morning it took a break, and the cold of getting out of bed was startling, but also a nice change.

I've been thinking a lot about things that I had been trying to avoid thinking about. I don't like some of the conclusions I've come to, but things are hardly ever the way you wish they could be. I've been expecting to wake up with a changed mind for the last few days, but it hasn't happened. I'm beginning to think it won't. January can make me practical in an awful way.