Beloved, Men in Thick Green Coats Came Crunching Through the Snow, the Insignia on Their Shoulders of Uncertain Origin

• This bullet and the next would have published this morning at nine had we lost power overnight. It seemed like a safe bet. Lights were flickering on and off as the power wire tossed in the branches of our crepe myrtle last night just after we had to dig out our furnace exhaust vent; buried under an eight foot snow drift, the snow covering the vent kept the furnace from engaging - it would turn on then stall every thirty seconds. It took us 45 minutes to get the fifteen feet from our door then dig out the drift. 
• I hate fucking snow.
• Though without the snow - without being housebound - Earthgirl would not have found the bobblehead Olive she made for for Giftmas then forgot. I love it. I still hate fucking snow.
• Canon fodder: institutionalized.
• Fashion, turn to the left.
• Hillary laughs. Yes, I posted it yesterday.
• A point of clarification: Inevitability is, was, and will be solely about winning the Motherfucking Democratic Nomination, not about winning POTUS.
• I once thought it likely she'd be POTUS - and still do - but less and less daily.
• On circular firing squads.
• Criminal oligarchy.
• Right now in Vollmann's The Dying Grass, General O.O Howard is under-pressure to kill all the Nez Perce as soon as possible as his troops are needed in St Louis, Chicago, and Pittsburgh to kill all the striking railroad workers.
• Speaking of yesterday: it was an average Saturday, visitor-wise, so I assume you clicked the ghost towns I listed, and just as if it was 2008 none of the mayors clicked through to see who bumped him or her.
• Maggie's weekly links.
• { feuilleton }'s weekly links.
• More new Tindersticks!

THE LETTER

Mary Ruefle

Beloved, men in thick green coats came crunching

through the snow, the insignia on their shoulders

of uncertain origin, a country I could not be sure of,

a salute so terrifying I heard myself lying to avoid

arrest, and was arrested along with Jocko, whose tear

had snapped off, a tiny icicle he put in his mouth.

We were taken to the ice prison, a palace encrusted

with hoarfrost, its dome lit from within, Jocko admired

the wiring, he kicked the walls to test the strength

of his new boots.  A television stood in a block of ice,

its blue image still moving like a liquid center.

You asked for my innermost thoughts.  I wonder will I

ever see a grape again?  When I think of the vineyard

where we met in October—when you dropped a cluster

custom insisted you be kissed by a stranger—how after

the harvest we plunged into a stream so icy our palms

turned pink.  It seemed our future was sealed.  Everyone

said so.  It is quiet here.  Not closing our ranks

weakens us hugely.  The snowflakes fall in a featureless

bath.  I am the stranger who kissed you.  On sunny days

each tree is a glittering chandelier.  The power of

mindless beauty!  Jocko told a joke and has been dead

since May.  A bullethole in his forehead the officers

call a third eye.  For a month I milked a barnful of

cows.  It is a lot like cleansing a chandelier.  Wipe

and polish, wipe and polish, round and round you go.

I have lost my spectacles.  Is the book I was reading

still open by the side of our bed?  Treat it as a bookmark

saving my place in our story.

(here the letter breaks off)