It was one hundred degrees as we sat beneath the willow trees

Today was cloudless, balmy, full of thinly budding trees and short grass and copper-colored sunlight from low on the horizon—the latitude looks wrong for the light. It's tundra summer. This is New England, home of chin-high snows and granitic cold. What planetary orbit do I have to tinker with to get a proper winter around here?

I forgot to mention that my poem "Follow Me Home" has been accepted by Lone Star Stories for their February issue, which will mark my first appearance there. This is cool. I have also had a thud of rejections lately, which I suppose balances things out.

I watched another handful of M*A*S*H last night. With respect to my earlier realization, if Rimmer is a descendant of Frank Burns, then King Gama must be the spiritual grandfather of them both:

I'm sure I'm no ascetic; I'm as pleasant as can be;
You'll always find me ready with a crushing repartee,
I've an irritating chuckle, I've a celebrated sneer,
I've an entertaining snigger, I've a fascinating leer.
To everybody's prejudice I know a thing or two;
I can tell a woman's age in half a minute—and I do.
But although I try to make myself as pleasant as I can,
Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man!
And I can't think why . . .

All hail Gilbert and Sullivan.