Ice, ice, baby

I wanted deep, pretty, fluffy snow, but we got ice in Atlanta instead. The dusting of snow (pictured above falling Thursday night in the courtyard of my building) quickly turned to ice and there were accidents galore and the city shut down. With temperatures still below freezing, it will probably stick around a few days. I went in to work for a few hours yesterday -- slipping and sliding up and down the side streets -- and decided to stay in today and get back to work on the Venus sequel. Irène and Martin are in Calais, France hot on the trail of Frederick, who might hold the answers to Irène's husband's death in 1968.

On the poetry front, I got a rejection from Barn Owl Review -- with a nice note from one of the editors -- so I will probably send out some poems tonight or tomorrow. I haven't sent much out lately, but I've been working on new poems, so I need to sift through and see what's viable for submission. I'm feeling the need to get the manuscript out of the file cabinet and send it out at some point this year. I need to add new poems and take out others and finally settle on a title (it was formerly called Wake).

My intro column for season 9 of American Idol appears tomorrow on the Project Q Atlanta website tomorrow and recaps begin Tuesday night. Here we go again...