Have you read "Circe" or "The Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller?  I just loved the former, and, this weekend, picked up the latter.  Perhaps it was yet another snowy evening in Virginia that beckoned me to the Greek Islands.  Or maybe it was this review by Ann Patchett:  "A scholar's homage to The Iliad, a startling original work of art ... A book I could not put down".

Which is how I found myself down a Greek rabbit hole, visiting with the ancient gods, and reconsidering the muse.

I'd always pictured the classical muse as a beautiful woman of leisure, reclining on a chaise being fed grapes by a pipe playing boy with goat legs.  A strapping mortal man stands nearby, absorbing her feminine glow while creating his work of genius.  Seems I had this wrong.   READ MORE

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Truth serum - I detest command performance holidays.  New Year's Eve is at the top of that list, followed closely by Valentines Day.  I feel for all those men spending silly money for a dozen red roses in a box, just to have them arrive on the magic date of February 14.  If only they had thought to send flowers a few random days over the course of a year, with a simple heartfelt note ...  "You mean the world to me".  They wouldn't be in near panic mode now.

I suppose this is to say, I like the unexpected gesture.  And I take just a little delight in saying no thank you to the obligatory march down Hallmark Boulevard.   Which might be why I embrace Galentines Day - no one expects their girlfriends to fete them on the fourteenth.  READ MORE

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I'm writing this note on the eve of the great blizzard of January 2026, feeling a bit like a child anticipating that miraculous gift from above - a snow day.  Yet because my work is at home, and because I love it, there's no underlying "get out of jail free" card.   It's more like a sanctioned regression back to childhood.  I can do anything I feel like today.

I'm betting you felt it too.  That thrill of waking up and checking the window.  (It goes without saying that all this magic presumes you don't lose electricity.  Fingers crossed.)   

How will you celebrate your snow day?     READ MORE

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