Well well well.

I have accomplished the following recently:

1. achieved the insight that, if I'm behind, I feel I don't have time to write--or that taking time to write might put me further behind, so, you know. Hence, no writing.
2. what the hell.

That said,

3. I arrived home from Seattle,
4. did the laundry,
5. cooked a dinner last night,
6. enthused/ranted about the Oscar on various social media, and to Bruiser and the historian,
7. made pancakes for myself,
8. made approximately 4% progress on my To Do list,
9. ate lunch with my daughter and granddaughter,
10. came home and made 4% more progress (total, if you're keeping track: 8% progress),
11. was the guest speaker in the class of a friend,
12. came home and ordered a vegetable pizza like a boss,
13. and so forth.

Upshot: still behind, but writing a list-y blog post.

One of the things on my list was to

14. organize all AWP notes, which
15. I have not yet done.

I do, however, have all my AWP swag

16. organized in a single bag.
17. the AWP tote bag. So, you know.
18. what the hell.

That said, I did

19. make a new header and background for my blog, and
20. write/"write" a blog post. So, you know.

That is twenty things I have accomplished, the people. I don't know what you're complaining about.

Bonus accomplishments:

21. clean sheets,
22. have listened to new Beck album (verdict: gorgeous)
23. have chatted with son in China and
24. both other sons via text. AND
25. I have a more than vague idea of what I will do in class, and
26. most importantly, I have a plan to accomplish all the other stuff I need to get done. So, you know.

A plan is literally the best.

Dear month of November,

You are on your way. I would like to submit some requests.

• Please have suitable weather. I know not everyone agrees with me on this, but it's time for things to get colder. Please no unseasonable warmness. Sun is fine, but let's keep it on the cold side.
• Please do not rush by. I am behind, month of November, and I have a lot of catching up to do, especially this week. 

• Please do not be excessively Christmasy. I have promised--promised!--my children that I will not delay in putting up a Christmas tree this year. And I mean to keep that promise. However! That does not mean a slough of Christmas music and other holiday hoopla before Thanksgiving. I have not even been grouchy at all about Halloween this year! There are pumpkins on my porch, and I wore a tee shirt with a spider web pattern on it, and I mean to wear my raven shirt if I can find it. I know Halloween isn't your brief, month of November, but I offer my Halloween-friendly attitude to show that I am not anti-holiday, not at all. But I think we all know what the relevant holiday is for November: Thanksgiving. So let's not rush it.
• Please, please, please help me get caught up this week. I need to get caught up.

That is all. I hope you find these requests reasonable.

Over and out in the Denver airport,

htms

p.s. See what you can do about the election concluding with an acceptable outcome. Please.

Tomorrow,

I have no appointments with students, meetings to attend, engagements of any kind. My students have been e-mailing me the URLs of their e-portfolios, and tomorrow, I intend to spend the day reading and responding to those portfolios, calculating grades, and drinking tea. I might take a walk.

In other words, the semester is winding down.

In other words, it's almost May, which in college land is summer, aka bliss.

Here's last Friday's poem. I'm a bit behind. But I will catch up, you just watch.

It doesn't make more sense than this.

I finished a week of reading portfolios, writing comments, and conferring with students. It snowed yesterday, great flying flakes that melted within hours. My son is--I think--in Malaysia. Some of my family are moving house. I have too many shoes. We had Indian food tonight--pakoras and saag and kofta and naan. A couple of nights ago, I woke up out of a dream which featured both George Clooney and some strippers. In my mind the semester is already over. If not actually over, then "over." It might snow tomorrow. I am going to sleep until I wake up tomorrow. The Jazz beat the Clippers without Okur or Brewer, and with Kirilenko injured. We saw Stop-Loss tonight. I have a New York Times waiting for me to read it. My offices, both at school and at home, are barely organized chaos. I am now officially behind in my online class. Two little girls in Scotland are wearing tee shirts I bought them, one with a pink kitty and another with a striped French chicken. We are thinking of going to Ireland in the fall. Starting April 1, Dr. Write and I are going to write a poem a day for National Poetry Month. I have lettuce seeds and pea seeds that I'd better plant if I'm going to. Today is Jerry Sloan's birthday. Happy Birthday.