Frozen Tundra and Rough Drafts

It’s damn cold here. Twelve degrees or some nonsense. There’s just a thin dusting of snow swirling around the yard, and the streets and the cars are all stained white from the salt trucks. It’s like a frozen tundra outside my office window.

The guests are gone, so I am back in my office. I did a deep cleaning of the house before the holidays, so things are nice and spartan the way that I like them. The fridge is stuffed with food still, the holiday chores are done, and Steve’s home to manage kids, so my housewife jobs are minimal. I’m enjoying myself.

I’m a big fan of the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo series. I read the trilogy three times. Now, I want to read books four and five by David Lagercrantz. But I feel that I must reread the entire series again for the fourth time before picking up the new books. It’s compulsive, I know, but it’s also perfect reading for a week like this. Instead of frozen New Jersey, I’m snug in a cabin in a moody Swedish town with a wood stoves and pots of coffee.

The series is a love letter to journalism and writing, which is also good timing for me. A nearly-finished Atlantic article is up on a google doc in another tab on this computer. Just fine tuning the last three paragraphs.  I need to get started in a moment on another article for a different venue, which is due on Friday. I’m ready to use another part of my brain from the one that knows the correct cooking time for roasted asparagus and the correct color of the guest bath towels.

Alright, I have a blog post about self driving cars coming before I get started on the new article.