All right, winter has hung around long enough. I’m tired of it. It snowed all day today. It didn’t stick to anything, which means we had all the cold and poor visibility with none of the fun. Well, fun for the kids, anyway. Just constant snow driven by a biting north wind. It was 70 degrees a few days ago, and they say we’ll be back to 70 by Tuesday. It just seems this winter has been very, very long.

I saw a robin a couple of days ago. In Okieland, that’s supposed to be a sign of spring. I’m not sure it counts, though, if the robin is frozen up to its knees in a puddle of ice. Okay, it wasn’t frozen, but I bet that bird is wondering why it flew north so soon right now.

My English students have taken to Beowulf. “I thought this was gonna suck, but I really like it,” one guy said today. Woohoo! It’s the little victories that keep us going. It was sure nice to hear the kids saying they like a piece of literature. I think we all got sick of pronouns.

Jacob has discovered Godzilla. Not the 1998 (or so) American version with pretty good effects. The old Japanese man-in-a-suit Godzilla. It’s my fault. I searched the ‘Net for the monster yesterday and now Jake is hooked. It’s so cute to watch him watch the video montages people have put up on YouTube. He gets all excited in those fight scenes. Godzilla vs. King Kong is his favorite.

I’m beginning to feel the nagging sensation of writer’s withdrawal. I haven’t done anything with my fiction for a while. I’ve been too busy planning lessons and grading papers. We’ve got a three-day weekend coming up, though, and Kim’s home for two of those days, so I’m hoping to do a little work on The Puppet King and The Fetch. Maybe work on that comic script some more.

Oh, when I heard about Mary Franklin’s pending appearance on Montel, I e-mailed the movie director who was interested in my Murdered by Human Wolves script to see how that’s progressing. He’s got other work he’s doing, but he assured me he hasn’t forgotten the script and he’s still working on making it happen.

It’s likely I’ll be driving down to Dallas for ConDFW on Feb. 24. It’ll just be a day trip, and I”m not a guest. If you’re attending, I hope to see you there.