how it is.

Today, I took my general unwillingness to spring from the bed in the morning and joyfully get about the day's business to a new level (that was a long modifier in the middle there, sorry about that!). Which is to say that I didn't get out of bed until NINE O'CLOCK. From this, I hypothesize:

1. I am carrying around a massive sleep deficit and will not be arising early for weeks and perhaps months to come.
2. I am a lazy brat.
3. both (a) and (b) above.

Well, be that as may be, I arose in a cold, quiet house. (I did open my eyes enough to chat with the historian a couple of times. I'm not a barbarian.) I worked out. I showered. I ate pancakes. (The first pancakes of summer!) 

We have a young friend living with us for awhile. He's a musician. He's working on composing some new songs. I heard some epic drumming from downstairs, because he can and does play multiple instruments. That drumming helped me

1. write notes for two new poems
2. consider a few things I needed at Target (a new trowel, gardening gloves, pruning shears)
3. call the appliance repair guys so they can come fix my washing machine, which has been doing this weird stop-in-the-middle-of-a-cycle for about two years now, so, you know, now seems like a good time to get that taken care of

I also used the drumming to motivate me to

1. load the dishwasher
2. put away a vast amount of clean dishes and other stuff that had been hanging out on my counter for awhile
3. straighten up my laundry room, because I don't need that appliance repair guy judging me like a judgmental bastard

The quiet: the people, it is a blessed, blessed balm to me.

Soon, I will take up what I believe is my big project of the summer, which has something to do with religious language. Maybe archaic and religious. Anyway, why this is a language I keep returning to--I am going to investigate that. The quiet seems like a good locus for a project like that. I will return and report. Maybe. Or maybe I will just keep it to myself, like a novitiate who has taken a vow of silence.

Snapshots of work at home day.

1. Did the same core workout that, last week, made my abdominal muscles complain for days. 

2. Ate buckwheat pancakes, the breakfast of the righteous.

3. Read and graded student work in preparation for

4. Two hours of online conferences. 

5. Worried about students who are still hoping that I can provide them with the magical words for finish the semester when they haven't really finished the work. 

6. Second workout.

Son: Why are you going to work on work at home day?

Me: I'm going to work out. [pause]  Also, I'm going to work.

Son: Seems like you always go to work on work at home day.

Me: It's the end of the semester. So there's projects to finish.

Son: PROJECTS? (may or may not be what he actually said)

7. School. For projects:                                                                          

...with The Charlotte. These are carefully assembled covers for books.
Oh the meticulousness and the glue!

8. Read ten poetry manuscripts, as I'm pre-screening for a book contest. Felt the despair and nihilism of this effort.

9. Lay down to contemplate my muscles and also the Sundance Catalog. AND the last part of Home Alone, the part with all the ouches but also all the gut laughs. AND Remember the Titans, what? #footballmovie  P.S., Also, does anyone remember that Ryan Gosling and Wood Harris, aka Avon Barksdale,  are in this movie? And Hayden Panettiere? 

HOME.

This morning, I woke up and wondered, briefly, where I was. I thought I was staying someplace in between--not Scotland, but also not-home. Then I came to: I was in my own bed, in Utah. It was 7:45.

I made pancakes, thus further establishing the home credential. 

I got my laptop going again, which made it cranky and balky. My email was all, no room at the inn, bitches, so I had a merry time deleting, but also rereading, emails from the past. Totally a sentimental journey, except that I could not send any emails whatsoever until all that heartwarming business was entirely OUT. OF. THERE. Also, just for extra delight, a mandatory software backup. Good computer times!

But when things were humming along, computer-wise, and laundry was churning away in the machine, I went to the front door, just to get a bead on the front yard. There was a hummingbird. It was visiting a torch lily, aka a red hot poker, that we had planted midsummer. 

I opened the storm door just a little bit to get a closer look, and it rose, and redirected its whir at the door. It came closer and closer in little pulses. I drew the door a little more closed. It hovered in the air about eighteen inches away from me, its beak pointed directly at me. It felt like a greeting, a little. 

And then, it turned toward the columbine, and I went back inside. 

The laundry is done, and I have reengaged with work. Advance copies of my book have arrived. I'm making a list of places to send review copies. I'm tired and I have cried several times today. I miss the Scotlands. But I am home. 

Snippets.

I don't think I need to really explain anymore how I feel about pancakes for breakfast. Like, that they are everything that is right with the world in the form of griddled batter? Or that they taste, with butter and maple syrup, like an epistemology? Or that they are, probably at a molecular level, integrally involved with the whole notion of a "good day"?

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I am obsessed with Trader Joe's. Now that there's one within range--not all the way downtown, although, on the other hand, all the way across the valley--I feel that I should be there frequently, to inspect the possibilities and to buy cheese. Possibly another potted hydrangea. Maybe some more of that Jumbo Raisin Medley? I can't get over those raisins. They might be the epitome of raisins.

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Target, on the other hand, was not the least bit illuminating today. Three pairs of shoes--all variations on a theme, never mind what the theme was--all on sale, but none of them in my size. A ridiculous shortage of white jeans, not that I need any more of those, either. They did, on the other hand, have dog food. And also a Moleskine notebook that was divided into chapters. A subdivided Moleskine? I did not buy it, but I might regret that.

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I woke up feeling just the tiniest bit croaky today. I had to investigate that situation. Was I getting sick? Could this incipient sickness be a consequence of all of my labors? Did I need to lie down for awhile or all day?

Well, it has disappeared, this croak. Good thing. Who needs to have an incipient sickness on a Saturday in April?

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Today we did some cleaning and straightening. That's because my son, the one who lived in India, is picking up his fiancee from the airport tonight. They will stay at our house. This obviously calls for vacuuming and putting things away and clean sheets and all manner of orderliness. We will meet her for the first time in maybe an hour and a half. Which means I should probably go do just a little more cleaning and putting things away and wiping surfaces in the kitchen.

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But not before I say that Thai food is making a comeback in our lives! There was a period of time, not so long ago, when I thought that I had, perhaps, seen the end of the Thai food craze in my own personal palate. Then, a couple of weeks ago, we decided we'd check out our old regular place, Thai Delight, in its inglorious strip mall location. Lo! It had remodeled and expanded, it was busy, and the food was delicious, maybe in part because we weren't eating it every weekend. Tonight, my son the soccer coach ate yellow curry, the historian had Massaman curry, and I had Pad Kee Mao. Also, papaya salad. Transplendent. My son, who had never had Thai food before, was especially impressed.   Thai basil is pretty much the very best thing, at least right now, Saturday night, with the Jazz down by two with a minute to go in the third, and the house almost clean, and a bride-to-be on the horizon.

[also: poem in view]