Events.

What is the optimal blogging frequency? Last year I blogged almost every day, with the exception of when we were in Dublin, when I made a decision not to make the trip be about blogging, which I do not regret one bit. (Instead, I took a million pictures . . . but that's another obsession to discuss upon another occasion.)

This year I have not forced myself to invent a post if one did not occur, and also, and frankly, I think the idea of having some extended experiences without feeling the need to comment on them every minute is probably good. Good for me, anyway. Because I don't spend enough time in front of a computer.

However, some weird blogging accounting compels me to offer you a report:

What I did while I was not blogging.

1. Went to lunch with my mom and dad, in honor of Father's Day and also their general delightfulness.

2. Bought three more colors of a certain lightweight cotton jersey cardigan that was marked way down, because I loved the first one I bought so very very much. Bringing the total of lightweight cotton jersey cardigans to 4. Because I love them so very very much.

3. Watched The Closer. Watched Saving Grace. Watched Knocked Up for the nth time (verdict: still very funny).

4. Took some footage for a new little film project.

5. Hung out with my grandson, including bringing him to my house for dinner and watching Monsters Inc. with him and putting him to bed and waking up in the morning and getting him breakfast and watching Toy Story and building towers with blocks and so forth.

6. Obtained my new laptop from my place of employment, a super-charged MacBook Pro. Which is everything it should be and more.

7. Went swimming with two grandsons up at Snowbird.

8. Helped grandson navigate the vagaries of a little summertime project we call the ice cream cone.

9. Read several novels, including the lately-neglected annual summer project of re-reading Harriet the Spy.

10. Read a new cookbook. Purchased copy of said cookbook for my very own.

11. Contemplated the desirability of everyday cake. (verdict: highly desirable.)

12. Went to see romantic comedy with Dr. Write, immediately followed by Summer Hours with the historian. (verdict: romantic comedy rather delightful; Summer Hours, sublime.)

13. Observed that the light this evening, after the storm had mostly passed, was both purple and golden.

Hope your days have been equally productive.

Dang good day.

Even though I had plenty of stuff to do that I didn't get done today, it still felt like a good day--the kind of day when you feel light because you can see that the big mountain of things there are to get done, you'll get done one way or another. I might even get my office cleaned out, for instance, at or around the end of the semester. I will certainly make some progress tomorrow on catching up in my online course. The weather's cold but warming. Even my friends' accomplishments are cheering me up--middlebrow's upcoming dissertation defense, I realized today, makes me feel happy to contemplate, and dr. write's upcoming distinguished lecture. Good news all around. Ice cream for everyone.

Which leads me to this: I got the letter today saying that my sabbatical proposal was approved, the thought of which makes me feel elated and beyond beyond. I had agreed to meet college daughter after work for a movie and then dinner--we saw The Boleyn Girl, which I had predicted would be well-dressed lurid trash, but I unexpectedly thought was pretty good, really. (It's possible that my good mood affected my viewing.)

And then, when I got home, there was a letter from the Arts Festival, saying that I got the Mayor's Artist Award in the Literary Arts. People who like and care for me nominated me, which is part of the joy--but it also felt great to read those words, written by a stranger. In a letter, which I will now frame and turn into a little shrine. (kidding.)

Finally: in light of all the above, it felt just wonderful to write a poem, the inaugural poem from the Poem-a-Day-for-a-Month Project, 2.0, in celebration of the cruellest month--National Poetry Month. You can read it here.

Cheers!