.: a quick note before reading another snatch of Utopia- it did make the final cut– and falling asleep amidst the wooden beams and dovetail joints of this Upstate NY homestead. There lies on the ground outside such a velvet and white coverlet of cold, crystalline snow, muffling the nightime sounds even while crunching beneath your feet. I have prayed for snow these weeks past, and it has come; or, perhaps, I have finally come to it. A happy holiday, assuredly, is upon me.

I had thought of so many things to write today, while traversing the desolate streets of Utica, or while running next to a frozen stream, inhaling cold glass-shards of frost with every desperate lungful… but as I get tired, it seems to slip away. Or perhaps it is the port I am sipping, which seems to affect the mind before the fingers (as I am typing well but thinking sluggishly). Whatever the reason, if it is not totally gone, it is in hibernation. Which, I may add in true circular satisfaction of the most clever literary kind, is where I am going right now. Goodnight.