I am now here in the western Catskills of New York. I’m grateful to be here in this house in the country while so many of my friends, colleagues and students remain cloistered in small apartments in the city. There is wet snow outside. Inside, it is warm, we have food and drink. Most importantly, all four of us have a place to work. Each with a “room of one’s own.”

Rachel started school remotely today. She’s a junior in high school. Hailey starts college remotely on Wednesday. I have until a week from Wednesday before I start teaching, but my “break”, ends Monday, one week from today. Liana has been the most busy, spending long hours on Zoom. I had planned to start work on my lessons today, but mostly I’ve been procrastinating.

What have I been up to? Mostly chopping wood, fixing things, doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, building cheap office furniture, and playing Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. I also took a nice snowy walk with the kids.
Chopping wood is great exercise and also makes firewood. About a year ago some of the trees here were threatening to murder children and break the garage, so they needed some major pruning witch resulted in all of these piles of wood on both sides of the house. I was going to have someone cut them up with a chainsaw and log splitter, but an ax at the home depot caught my eye, and besides Hailey had remarked that she wanted one. So yesterday I began chopping and id more this morning. It feels good, my shoulders and hands are sore, in a good way, and I didn’t really think it was exercise. Plenty more to do to. Maybe tomorrow I’ll review Assassin’s Creed.