The Megastore recommends.

I would like a patch for the
weather eye. Wouldn't you?

1. Keeping a weather eye open. I am, perhaps, in the minority here, but I do love a storm, and I do love a bout of weather descending upon us. I like the dark descending and I like it to descend decisively. This, however, is not what I am about to recommend. In fact, I'm starting to feel a little sheepish about my all snow or nothing at all! mentality.

What I'm recommending instead is the historian's weather eye, which is focused on the warm afternoon and the opportunity for a bike ride.


"I don't know if you're interested, but I thought I'd take Bruiser over the playground and let him romp around," he said to me, peering into my cave/study. Where I was huddled over my laptop, grading.

"Give me five minutes," I said, thinking, I can just finish this discussion.

Which I did, almost, and then put my shoes on.

"If you wanted to, you could ride your bike over," he said. "Or otherwise, we could take your car."

That's because the back of his car is filled with his bike. In case beautiful weather breaks out and he can take a spontaneous ride.

"No, I'll ride my bike." And, reader, that bike was a good reminder that on a golden afternoon, regardless of whether it happens to be in the first part of November when by golly it oughta be cold, you should bust out your bike for a spin if you can. And for heaven's sake, wear your helmet.

I personally like to don a pinafore
for my Friday morning writing.

2. Writing. This past Friday was my writing group. I kept thinking there might be a poem about to happen. I had been hauling around a lovely image for a week and a half, and then I came across another image and I thought I could get the two images together and they might copulate, as it were, and a bouncing new poem might be in the offing.

Alas, no. Even so, I did get the two images together and I thought some more about the slightly disappointing Michaelmas daisies that are in my front yard (they are a slightly wan color, where many Michaelmas daisies are a lovely more intense lilac), and so I looked up Michaelmas, which gave me plenty more material and I am BAM on my way to a poem, maybe. Feels good. I recommend it.

My quiet afternoons would totally
look just like this, if I were in Tuscany.

3. A quiet afternoon. Oh how I love a quiet afternoon. I sometimes fight with myself about the overflow of joys I have in my life (the fact that I fight with myself about them is absurd and yet ongoing). But when a quiet afternoon happens--unspoken for, without claim--I love it, and when I seize it with all my energy and powers, it makes me feel restored and capable, like I am living my life and it is not living me. You can grade, read the paper, and eat a sandwich, take a break. You can make a list and check things off the list one two three. Quiet afternoons are so choice! Should you have the means, I highly recommend that you pick one up.

Did you know that naps had science?
They do! This graph is science!

4. Nap Saturday. I don't want all my Saturdays to be nap-centric. But sometimes after a very busy week, when you haven't slept all that well and you have run hither and yon and you are perhaps behind in your work, a nap will be just the thing. A nap will make you lie down and stop running hither and yon. A nap will slow you down. A nap will let your cells unclench their cellular fists. A nap will make your limbic eyelids stop twitching. A nap will put you in your comfortable clothes and make you soak in the sunlight pouring in the window. A nap, in short, will save your life, if not forever then for today, and today is something worth saving, now, isn't it?

Stuff.

Graphic credit: Carl Richards via The New York Times

We have a lot of it.

That is not all.

We have made the monumental decision to improve the basement of our house by getting sheetrock and better ceilings and a couple of power outlets in the hall and new carpet in the bedrooms and some other shenanigans I don't know what all.

This necessitated removing stuff from the rooms that are to be improved.

So. Much. Stuff.

The untidiness!

The Gatorade bottles, empty, under certain people's beds!

"We have got to get rid of some of this furniture," I said, emphatically, to the historian, while sitting on some of the furniture that we might have to get rid of.

"I promise," said the historian.

Tomorrow, the wrecking ball.

I mean the contractors.

As God is my witness, we will get rid of some of that stuff.

And that IS
all.

The dark.

Darlings! I am officially at that moment of the year when it is 6:43 p.m. and I feel like, what, is it bedtime yet? So dark. Also: cold. And I feel a tad sniffly, like maybe there's a cold about to happen, because my sleep, she is all mixed up.

But never mind. Today, I added yet another item to my permanent collection of long cardigans (cozy division), and have spent time burrowing into the cinematic (not really) archives of my screencasts, only to come to the inescapable conclusion that

• although the screencaster seeks to make a durable instructional artifact,
• time and tide do transform the landscape of, well, everything, and lo the screencasts of yesteryear do in the cold light(-ish) of day seem veritably old-timey and unbearably dated, and thus
• the screencaster feels called to make a new one. Yes,
• a new screencast, on an old topic, but with new examples and less static slides.

Therefore:

• woe.

But never mind. Today for lunch I made a sandwich on a pretzel roll which, whoa, they are good. What was on my sandwich, you ask? Well! 

• since we're working in bullet points, it was
• melted gruyere and
• avocado and
• lots of little cut-up cherry tomatoes and
• Maldon salt (infinitely better than regular salt, I swear it!), and
• pepper, obvs, and
• arugula.

I made it

• open-faced

so that I could prolong the pleasure. And lo it was very good.

Also, I made a new screencast, and captioned it. And I made a

• list of the other tasks I have to do,
• none of which I have actually "accomplished."

So: good day.

Recently, my friend Ann, whose writing I have been reading for more than 30 years, true story!, asked me to answer these questions, called The Blog Tour. (you can read her answers here.)

1. What are you working on right now?

Right now, I'm revising a manuscript of poems. I'm writing new poems from time to time as well.

2. How does it differ form other works in its genre?

Hey, Blog Tour questions, when I read this question yesterday, it sent me into an existential crisis! How the hell should I know how it differs from other works in the genre? I can barely wrap my mind around these two facts:

• (a) I am a poet. And
• (2) WHY.

Welllll, it's a manuscript of poems. It still has some religion in it, which maybe is out of style these days? Or not. It is lyric. It feels urgent to me, and also late (maybe this is because I am getting older?). But in that it is lyric and deals with the usual lyric questions (beauty, joy/melancholy, death and loss, the persistence of song), I guess it is kind of of a piece with lyric poetry, that ancient art.

3. Why do you write what you do?

My answer to this may sound flippant, but it's true: because I can. Because I can, I do.

4. How does your writing process work?

I am currently not in much of a writing groove. But when I am, I more or less regularly write stuff down that I mentally tag "poem-ish" or "possibly poem-ish" or "smells like teen poetry." I have a document called "Daily Writing" that I write in semi-annually, which is where I record the poem-ish material. Sometimes--lucky times--a poem will come to me almost whole, or at least the whole gesture, or nearly the whole gesture. In that case I write it down, if I'm smart. I'm not always smart.

If I don't get the whole poem or the whole gesture, then periodically I go back through my notes and see what seems interesting. Sometimes, I take the interesting bits and create a new document to see if I can make something happen. Sometimes the "Daily Writing" document will give me an idea and I let that idea stew for a while, and then I see if I can make something out of that stewing.

I remember reading Stanley Kunitz, who said that when he was young he wrote all the time; as he got older, poems came to him less frequently. Philip Levine said that John Berryman told him, "When you are young, write everything that occurs to you." I did that, when I was younger. Right now, not so much is happening. But it will. I actually, now, kind of have faith in poetry. Right now, I am revising and shaping that manuscript. That is part of my process as well.

I am supposed to tag some of you, so watch out! I WILL TAG YOU.

To bake a pumpkin pie.

First, you must have purchased a pie pumpkin. These are generally round and compact and not of jack-o'-lantern proportions, rather smallish, modest, without aspirations for Cinderella transport or anything of the sort.

A Google Images reenactment
of my pumpkin pie/tart.

Next, you must assess your time and space availability. Because you will need to make a crust. You will need to roast the pumpkin. You should allow for the possible difficulties, crust-wise, and you must assess your butter stores. This is important. Without enough butter, your pie crust will be tricky, and you will not be happy.

You must develop a Plan A and a Plan B and possibly a Plan C. Plan A is the one where you make the pie dough the night before, so that it can "rest" and be at peace with itself. Plan A is the one where you come home from the movie on Friday night, get out your butter--ample and sufficient--and cut it into tiny cubes and rub it with your fingers into the flour, &c. &c. until the dough "gathers" into a "ball," and you press it into a flat round and put it in the refrigerator.

Plan B is where you decide you can do all of that the next day, the day the pie is to be taken to a party. And why not? In Plan B, you remind yourself of all the pies you've recently made, very successfully, you remind yourself, and also why be so ahead of yourself, when you're tired, heaven knows you are? And you still have to walk the dog?

Fourthly, at 4 p.m. the day of the party, you must reckon with the fact that you may have left yourself only barely enough time to make this damn pie.

Fifthly, you must reckon with the fact that you have only barely enough butter. Maybe not even quite that much.

Sixthly, you will forge ahead and make a pie dough that perhaps exhibits the symptoms of the not-quite-enough-butter factor, and thus the mark of a smallish bit of over handling. Alas.

HOWEVER: The fact that you have engaged with pie dough with great success and quite recently to boot will mean that the pie dough does not quite get the best of you. Almost but not quite. It will be crack-y and difficult, it will not quite cohere, it will show the seams. It will, in fact, deconstruct itself.

BUT:

When you whip up the roasted pumpkin with half and half and eggs and spices, &c. & c., when you dice up candied ginger and strew it in the bottom of your tart pan, when you in fact use a tart pan, which elevates your difficult crust into something slightly more suave, something slightly more European, when you bake the pie/tart, and an ineffable aroma disseminates and insinuates itself into the kitchen and then into the byways of the house:

THEN your pie will have arrived and fulfilled its destiny, and you will have nothing to apologize for. You will take it to the party and serve it up in tiny slices, and you will be glad yet again not just for this pie, or the arrival of pumpkin season, but for the category of pie itself.

And that will be that.

Even tinier letters.

Dear student consultations that lasted the whole of last week,

Man, you really took it out of me.

still tired,

htms

*

Dear The Blacklist,

Even though as late as last week, I was still watching you, despite the fact that I really could see pretty much all of your flaws, when I read that Emily Nussbaum called you "torture porn," I now do kind of have to quit you.

sorry, but she's right,

htms

**

Dear all the committees,

I am tired of your shenanigans.

now, which one of you shall I quit?

htms

***

Dear fallen leaves,

When I saw you all over the back lawn, it was like the atmosphere was yellow.

you're really beautiful,

htms

****

Dear harbinger of the storm,

I walked straight toward you, from meeting to meeting, and I closed my eyes and breathed you in.

I've been waiting for you,

htms

Tiny little letters.

Dear Work Outfit,

I selected you on the basis of strict criteria:

• cute
• comfortable
• in it for the duration.

And for meeting all those standards, you were good, you were very good. You did your job and more.

But how deeply moved I felt, when day was done, to take you off and resume my soft, stretchy, which is to say giving, home outfit.

I won't forget you, but still.

htms

*

Dear Last Student Conference of the Day,

It wasn't even a long day, really, student conference-wise: just six. But you, Last Student Conference of the Day, were at 7 p.m., when I was already in my soft, stretchy, which is to say giving, home outfit. And I was hungry. 

It helped that the student was a good one. That she was genuinely interested in talking about her writing. That she told me she liked my class, and yes, I did believe her.

And yet, upon your conclusion, Last Student Conference of the Day, my energies did finally flag. And thus, Rubio's and The Big Bang Theory. Last week's episode and tonight's. And a big, deep sigh.

whew,

htms

**

Dear Slightly-Better-Than-Fast-Food Taco,

Thank you for being there in my hour of need. You are not the best taco in the world. But you are not the worst, and you are ready and willing when my energies do flag. Also, no one will complain if I wear my soft, stretchy, which is to say giving, outfit to acquire and eat you.

srsly, thank you,

htms

***

Dear End of the Week,

Even though I still have eight more student conferences tomorrow, and ten more assignments to read before that, and even though I must go into work to conduct said conferences, it is a fact that, when the week you come at the end of has been full of student conferences and other things, including appointments that I've forgotten and tasks piling up and not enough writing or reading and the mounting of deadlines:

Even so, End of the Week, OMG you taste so sweet.

So very sweet!

htms

thanks to Ann for the

inspiration!

Dear some things to think about,

I try to keep a running list of you, some things to think about. But you are slippery, like thought itself. For instance, I was thinking about something as simple as it's time to put the clean sheets on the bed. It's simple because there are, in fact, no sheets on the bed at the moment. So the time is optimal for clean sheets, or any sheets, although where sheets are concerned, clean is preferable to any of the alternatives, as I see it.

Well, there the bed sits, naked and without sheets, but it so happens that several important and fat catalogs arrived in the mail today, which clearly needed perusing. It also so happens that an unmade bed is, if not optimal, just fine for perusing catalogs. So I did: I perused them, which led me inextricably to consider the fact of my nail polish, which was chipping. Nail polish remover, a new coat, and here I am with nails too fresh for making a bed, obviously. Obviously!

It's just like that, some things to think about. My office, for instance, is a den of madness. (My office at home--at work, my office is pristine, immaculate, worthy of worship, a shrine to what is good and right in the universe.) A den of thieves, I want to say, although that's Biblical. Actually, though, Biblical is the frame of mind that the den of chaos that is my office puts me in. Hellfire and Old Testament punishments.

If I could keep track of you, some things to think about, maybe I could make something happen in the Orderliness quadrant of Desirable Qualities to Have [DQH™]. Yet here I am, blogging. When all else fails: blog. But blogging doesn't put the Order back into the DQH™. It just doesn't.

Some things to think about, I wish that the list of you would stop running. I wish it would stand still so I could take the measure of you. Stop moving and slipping, some things to think about! When will I ever [X] if you don't?

disorderly but with super shiny nails,

htms

Dear the Internet,

A visualization of routing paths through a
portion of the Internet. (Wikipedia)

I tried so hard to find you.

In West Yellowstone, you were not to be found in coffee shops, nor bookstores, nor brewpubs, nor restaurants, nor in the streets.

In Yellowstone National Park, not that I'm complaining, you were nowhere.

In my hotel, the threshold to you--a tiny little wireless signal--diminished and disappeared as I walked down the hall to my room, in the door...and poof  you were gone.

The internet in this town was
scarce indeed.

Do not ask me, the Internet, why I cannot do without you. I did without you, so it isn't a matter of cannot. But at this point in time--in history--the Internet is like oxygen. It is like oxygen, bonded with hydrogen. It is like a molecule of water, joined with other molecules of water in a heedless flow of information, like a river. Like one of the many rivers we walked beside in Yellowstone, where, it goes without saying, you, the Internet, were nowhere to be found.

In the end, we went in the tiny, tidy little library of West Yellowstone. The librarian looked at me. He know without my even saying.

"Do you by chance have wireless?" I asked, weary and pathetic.

He held out a slip of paper with the network and password.

The Internet, thank God for libraries. And librarians.


next time, don't be such a stranger,

htms

The Way to Grace.

Dear The Way to Grace,

Tonight, I saw you in Pocatello, Idaho, just past the parking lot of an Applebee's. It seems to me that I have crossed you before, although I never before saw the sign. Your sudden appearance raises a few questions for me.

Are you, The Way to Grace, only a Pocatello thing? Or are you in other Idaho towns? Is Applebee's on The Way to Grace? Or was that just coincidental?

Perhaps it was that enormous wedge salad I ate, or the small headache I had from driving? Although I don't think it was an hallucination.

Was it the hour, after dark? the season, late? the particular crossroads?

Will you appear to me again when I least expect it? I know I will think of you. If I want to find you, where shall I look?

sincerely,

htms

Posted with Blogsy

Dear difficulty,

Ordinarily I would not begin by calling you "dear."

Of you, difficulty, there are various kinds. Of the first order, the trivial. To this category belongs mislaying one set of keys in yesterday's purse. Forgetting one's water bottle. The fact that the battery in the garage door opener is, apparently, kaput. These difficulties make the project of leaving the house in the morning a small ordeal. But small: an ordeal, but just a small one.

The order of the second kind of difficulty is the trial. To carry on with the courtroom metaphor, a trial of the small claims court variety, wherein one goes in to speak to the judge, to argue--suggest, really--that one's ill temper in the morning meeting* was occasioned by a series of small ordeals upon leaving the house that morning. At this sort of trial, not really a trial at all, the judge is inclined to let one off with a warning or perhaps a small fine. The thing that makes this trial a trial is that being cautioned or fined by a judge is in itself a trial, the kind that leaves one muttering about injustice for the rest of the day.

Dear difficulty, in the third order, there is the aching back that cannot be entirely eased, not even by stretches performed behind one's desk, accompanied by a small dose of anxiety that people can perhaps see the stretching through the not-quite-opaque glass. The aching back, added to the rest-of-the-day meetings, added to the sixteenth day of the government shutdown and the endless posturing by smug, bloviating bastards. The third order of you, dear difficulty, is a difficulty added upon, a difficulty by means of compounding: a difficulty that is, by virtue of its many parts, magnified and aggregated and addendum'd and be-densified until it seems very like a juggernaut: a whale of a difficulty, verily! an ogre and a golem of a difficulty.

But when the day is done, dear difficulty, one arrives at one's home, despite the aching back, to find that there is half a pizza. One enters to find a home which, despite its various slovenlinesses and disarrays, has a dog who finds one's arrival, and a husband who is prepared to watch Modern Family and the hot mess that is Nashville. One can dress down, and seize upon one's most comfortable clothes and one's slippers. One may read, upon refreshing Facebook and the New York Times website several (dozen) times, that the government shutdown has ended and the debt default is staved off.

And, dear difficulty, yet again one finds that without you, none of these comforts would be half so sweet.

But no more debt ceiling shenanigans--that was too far, times a million--

Exaggerating only a little,

htms

*the "ill temper in the morning meeting" is a fiction enacted here to illustrate the second order of difficulty. There was no actual ill temper this morning. No indeed! The author arrived at the morning meeting in fine fettle and full of good humor. In fact, the author is creating this entire fiction because (a) she has taken the government shutdown and debt ceiling brinksmanship rather hard, perhaps even personally, and thus (b) she is srsly relieved that it is over. 

(--at least for now.)

Dear Sunday,

Despite my intentions, I woke up early today. The dog was at the door. That sounds like a metaphor, but it's not: Bruiser sleeps elsewhere, i.e., not with us, because he's a big guy and likes to sleep sideways.

But at some point in the early hours, he always comes to the bedroom door and requests entrance. We should just say No, Bruiser, because if we do, he'll retreat for awhile, and we can sleep a little longer. But usually one of us lets him in. That person tries to make it back to the bed, flipping the covers back over with great haste, so that the B settles between us but does not upset the overall sleep ecology. But I think you can see: it's an iffy proposition. It's always possible that he'll beat you to the bed and you'll be making do with the short shrift this arrangement offers, covers-wise.

So I got up, went out to get the papers. Came in, made breakfast. Began to read the news, bad and good news in whatever today's proportions seemed to be. Seems like a lot of bad news lately, doesn't it, Sunday? But Sunday is the only day that I can linger over a newspaper, so I always do.

I caught up with the bit of sleep I might have added to the night's later this afternoon. I lay down with my current novel, read a few chapters and sank into some dream set in the same strange country as the novel. Woke up, relieved that I hadn't slept as long as my epic dream seemed to indicate. The light slanted in the window at an approximate afternoon hour. I got up.

That's how it's been today, Sunday. Desultory and not particularly productive. Sleepy. Rainy. After a decidedly action-packed Saturday, I was pretty glad that you and I came to this agreement.

still resting,

htms

Dear rejected topics I thought about writing a letter to:

Dear smug, bloviating bastards,

Dear where shall I park downtown,

Dear I want to buy all the stuff,

Dear potato chips,

Dear Saturday with a work obligation,

Dear week with no respite in it,

Dear farmer's market in its penultimate week,

Dear national parks that are not open,

Dear smug, bloviating bastards (I feel the urge to write this letter every other minute!),

Dear mid-semester pile-on,

Dear all the topics above, and more,

Perhaps I will take you up another day. But right now I do not want to summon the wit, words, wizardry, and (it's not a "w" word, but it's the only one that will do) rage to write you. It is Friday night and I am tired. Maybe tomorrow and maybe never, is when I might take one or another of you up. Now, I am retiring.

I said good night,

htms

Dear gray wet day,

First, I'm glad I moved into my new office, because I have now lay hands upon not one but two umbrellas that had retired to lonely corners of my old one.

Secondly, sweaters. They are good.

Thirdly, in a window, even gray light is light. This is my big revelation for October: light! It's good!

Fourth, Thursday makes a gray day a happy day. Because of its proximity to Friday and all.

Fifthly, it seems important to note that a brief respite in the rain made a perfect opportunity to dash over to the place where they sell the apple turnovers. And buy one. So I could, you know, eat it.

Sixthly, any work day that begins with breakfast with Ann, has conversations with loads of friends and associates, and ends with a meeting in my (gray) light-filled office is a pretty good day (especially with the unscheduled apple turnover just making an appearance with no warning).

Seventhly, a faux fur blanket, which anchors the heat-seeking strategy so essential to October television watching. (see also: the historian and Bruiser, also essential.)

Eighth, checking things off and getting things done.

Ninth, I sure do miss my absent children.

And tenth: the flowers look a little defeated and I turned the heat on in the car coming home, but I had leftover chili from last night and some sharp tasting arugula and bags of Asian pears from the Asian pear guy at the market. So you're all right, gray wet day. You're all right.

Chin up,

htms

Dear Linda Ronstadt,

Tonight I had to drive downtown to a meeting. All the way downtown. Past the downtown Target, that's how far downtown. North of downtown, which meant that I had some listening time in the offing.

That could have been NPR time, or PRI time, or Q time, but I have to tell you, Linda, that none of that was cutting it for me. It's October, well into autumn now, and for autumn, you need a soundtrack for melancholy. That's just how it is. Those bright days fading to an earlier night: this calls for the music of your youth. Which brings me to you.

I remember driving around town in my folks' station wagon. These were the days, the seventies, when AM radio had music programming. It was the South Bay, Los Angeles, it was the summer before my senior year. I had a serious crush on a boy and that crush was always and forever going to be mostly unrequited. That was the year of your hit "You're No Good," which I liked to sing at the top of my lungs while driving. I liked to pretend that song was me singing to the boy, even though the boy was good. It still made me feel better.

I had the LP and I had the sheet music. I could play and sing the songs on the piano. You didn't write any of them, but your big, generous voice made the songs yours even so.

A couple of years ago I had a hankering to hear the songs again, so I downloaded the album. And a few weeks ago, I read somewhere that you really can't sing anymore--you've lost your voice because of Parkinson's. I don't know how that makes you feel. But tonight, driving north and then home again, I remembered how I felt when your music spoke for me, made the soundtrack to my summer, my teenage heartbreak, and my memories of a gorgeous time when the ocean gleamed on the horizon, my life was ahead of me, and the car radio played songs like yours.

I won't forget you,

htms


 how

Open letter to my new office.

Dear my new office,

Oh how I have looked forward to you! And now you are here, and I am with you, and it is all far, far better than I could have imagined.

The light, for starters. Have I considered, truthfully, the cell-esque-ness of my previous office? I had not, not until today, when I walked in to you, my new office, to see all my boxed-up books and files stacked three deep, and the big, big window letting in the mid-morning sun.

I have culled and sorted and given and thrown away, all in preparation to meet you, my new office. Srsly: you cannot imagine the tonnage (maybe an exaggeration, but it's kind of justified) of paper I have recycled/shredded. And books relegated to the "Free Books!" table. I have done my very best to sleek out my worldly/office-ly possessions.

My books fit on the shelves. Narrowly. My knick knack-ery, mostly. Art, yes.

I only wish, if it's not too soon to ask, my new office, that you would manifest approximately four more drawers, two of them file-sized.

In every other way you are a dream come true,

htms

Short notes to my nemeses.

Dear Jacques Derrida,

So: we meet again. You, who have so affected the way I think about almost everything. You, whose critique of ideas like nature and transcendence and essence and meaning--everything that feels normative--constantly disrupts my thought. You, whose prose goes a little something like this:

For my part, although these two interpretations must acknowledge and accentuate their difference and define their irreducibility, I do not believe that today there is any question of choosing--in the first place because here we are in a region (let's say provisionally, a region of historicity) where the category of choice seems particularlry trivial; and in the second, because we must first try to conceive of the common ground, and the differance  of this irreducible difference. Here there is a sort of question, call it historical, of which we are only glimpsing today the conception, the formation, the gestation, the labor. 

Jacques, I owe you an intellectual debt. We all do. But dude. Your writing.

I'm sorry, but it's so hard,

htms


******

Dear Monday,

Not to be all cliched about it, but Monday, you are making me feel a little bit anxious. I feel like I have three things to do that all have to be done by 8 a.m. And that makes me wonder how I'm going to do the other things that have to be done before the things that need to be done by 8 a.m.

What do you think I am, Monday? a morning person? by which I mean a super-powered-robot? Well I'm not. I'm just a human being that has to get up, eat something, wash her hair, get dressed in an acceptable outfit, get her new key for her new office, finish boxing up some dubious files and personal items &c &c &c before eight a.m.! Too much, Monday! Too much!

(breathing now, slowly breathing):

htms

Dear afternoon nap,

I remember earlier today, when I was thinking about how the day--a Saturday--might unfold. Definitely the farmer's market. And I thought I might go in to my office to finish packing stuff for the move to the new shiny office. After that--what? It could have been anything. An open afternoon with space in it for a walk, or writing, or baking, or pesto making, or all of that and more. Anything at all! it's the kind of day that gleams as the paradigm for Saturday, the kind of day that paradoxically happens only seldom.

So yes, the farmer's market, with a splendid haul. We unloaded and put food away, and in short order I had taken myself to Target for a roll of packing tape, then off to my office, where I found that my prox card wouldn't let me in. Evidently since my prox card is now programmed to let me into my new building, where I am not yet moved in, I am no longer allowed in after hours to my current building, where my stuff still is.

And yet, the day still glowed. The sky clear, the sun shining. Oh well, I thought. I'll just come in early on Monday. (Parenthetically, let me say that the I'll just come in/get up early on X gambit is almost always a ruse. That I perpetrate on myself, but never mind.) So I took my roll of tape and went home, made myself some lunch, then lay down to read. Which lead to you, afternoon nap.

Three hours later, when I roused myself, I was all, now what just happened here? But in point of fact,
it was probably a good thing. I've been sick, after all. And I've been traveling hither and yon. Maybe it's a little extra payment on the principle of my staying healthy mortgage.

The fact remains, though, afternoon nap, that you kind of snuck up on me. And that makes me feel a little sheepish.

hope I'm not up all night,

htms.

Short notes to authors.

Dear Arnaldur Indridason,

I am enjoying reading Black Skies. In fact, when I couldn't sleep last night, I started it and read over half of it before finally going back to bed. It is haunting and grave, and I am pretty well impressed with how you manage to weave plots and points of view, all without fanfare or folderol. It's very good.

But where is Erlendur? I am worried about him.

No, really,

htms.

**

Dear Patrick Rothfuss,

I remember when I saw the ad for The Name of the Wind in the New York Times. I thought to myself I want to read that book. Literally, from the ad, not even the actual cover. The picture of the cover, in an ad, made me want to read it. When I finally put the title and my desire together with an actual book purchase, it was excellent. Maybe excellent for fantasy, but maybe just plain old excellent. I loved it.

I did what anyone does--I Googled you, and found out your story, which I loved--that you had written a great shaggy tome, and got a book deal, and the tome contained (of course it did) a trilogy-esque work--tripartite in scope. Oh yay! I thought. More book! More Chronicle!

But of course, you're still working on it. Look, I'm a writer too. I get it. But let me tell you this, Mr. Rothfuss: part two had about 25% too much land of faery. Maybe more than that--45% too much, even. So while you're revising part 3, a word to the wise: you might be overthinking it. One more word to the wise: don't overthink it.

love,

htms

**

Dear Fred Vargas,

Oh how I love and adore your Commissaire Adamsberg and his weird French-y world. I thought your most recent book was splendid, with its Northern European Gothic skeleton riders and what not. All full of woodsy woods and village secrets and Calvados. Well done!

Is there any reason we--and by we I mean you, obviously, although I like to think that I am entirely on your side--okay, is there any reason we couldn't be putting these books out at the rate of one a year? I know it would improve my life. They are, after all, procedurals. Shouldn't there just be a procedure for writing them un petit peu trop vite? S'il vous plait?

a bientot,

htms

Getting it done: a letter.

Dear the middle of the night:

--or more precisely, 2:30 a.m., which I know precisely because I checked. I checked my cell phone when I awoke because my head was hot and maybe I felt my cold having a small insurgency in the skirmishes of the night. I guess that's what they are. I know I felt I was fighting something.

So one more DayQuil, a swig of water, a settling of covers, a small storm of thoughts. I thought: at least I can spend the morning at home. I thought, I only have one class, I can get it together for that. I thought, If I'm actually sick, why not stay home? And that last was the thought that I tied around my finger to remember in the morning, when I awoke again at seven. It was not exactly a reprise of the dark hours, but it was a variation on a theme: one more DayQuil, a swig of water, a storm of thoughts--and I was up.

Middle of the night, it was precisely there, in your 2:30 a.m., that I came to my senses. If I'm sick, why not stay home? I clung to this sensible thought as if I were in a fever and the thought were the promise of water. So I sent an e-mail to the class and to my chair, and settled in.

And even though I had awoken in you, the middle of the night, the 2:30 a.m. locus of my ill epiphany, I had a day that looked like an exemplary page from a Covey planner:

• graded a discussion.
• conversed via e-mail with students.
• brokered a tentative agreement in an e-mail with a colleague.
• narrated and captioned four short instructional videos.
• ate soup for lunch. (soup is always exemplary, in my opinion.)

Because of my sick, ergo stay home day, I believe I am on the mend, the middle of the night, though I may yet greet you a few hours hence. Even so, you shall not fell me.

be it so resolved,

htms

Open letter to the thing I am not going to whine about, not one more time.

Dear the thing I am not going to whine about, not one more time:

First of all, today was a lovely day. That's a fact. Evidence:

gonna need some of this.

1. It was my Online Teaching Day (tm), which I have reserved for working at home. Ergo,
2. I worked at home.

Secondly, there was sunshine in the sky which flooded all over the things of the earth.

drinking pots full of this.

It was windy, and that's a (third) counter-fact. However, (fourthly) in the wind's defense, it stayed outside. And I stayed in. And thus it was that the wind had no force upon me.

Fifth: I finished some things today. I worked and worked away. I finished responding to some drafts and grading them. I polished up some Prezis. I sent some e-mails. 

So let me be clear, the thing I am not going to whine about, not one more time: you did not defeat me. Not remotely and not even.

I should literally
buy stock in this.

However--and I am saying this in the most measured of tones, a neutral tone, even, calm and merely observational:

You did not make my day better. The thing I am not going to whine about, not one more time: you did, in fact, make my day worse.

Although I am categorically not whining, I am brandishing my ginger tea and DayQuil at you, and my depleted packet of Kleenex. 

a bushel of these would not go amiss.

I'll say no more, the thing I am not going to whine about, not one more time. There's really no talking with you or about you, not without complaining. And I won't. You can't make me.

I said good day,

htms

Short observations.

If you have, say, twelve videos to remake, by replacing sneakily screen-grabbed visuals with legit Creative Commons-licensed ones, and re-recording the voiceovers, and maybe making the overall content a little more substantial while you're at it, and also adding captions--

(damn if that's not a long if clause)

--to repeat: if the above are the conditions under which you decide that by god you're going to get some of those videos DONE, son, it does not follow that you should start four at the same time.

Because you're probably not going to finish any of them, and then you're going to feel panicky for days.

*

I'm not complaining. But this weather, it might actually be a little too cold for the middle of September.

And thus it was that I found myself thinking today, but it's okay: it's going to get warm again. It's going to get warm again? I ask you.

*

Days are not infinitely elastic. Poems are acting like strangers.

And here I thought I had less to do, and I still have lots. Lots and lots.

*

I am looking as if from afar--from a great, great distance--at the peaches and tomatoes at the farmer's market. With longing, I think that's implicit in from a great, great distance.

*

I sometimes feel like I've said all the things there are to say on a blog. Just a feeling, not a fact, although it sometimes feels like a fact.

*

This afternoon as we walked in the chill, before the sun went down, the light and air were perfect.

*

Grading is, like, an existential condition.

*

That is all.

Over shrimp tikka masala.

There's been a cold snap, as they say. It was gray and legitimately chilly today.

Me:  It's definitely cold enough for tights, except for my rule.

The historian:  What's that, again?

Me:  Once you wear tights, no more bare legs.

The historian:  I see.

garbage rules, Jean-François Chénier

Me:  ....and the reverse in the spring--once you wear bare legs, no more tights.

The historian: I saw a couple of young women today on campus--they were wearing tights.

Me: I know. I would have, too. But I have the rule.

The historian: [contemplates.]

Me:  It's like my personal "no white after Labor Day" rule.

The historian: And my rule is "wear shorts for as long as possible."

The Megastore recommends (Harbinger of Fall Edition).

okay, I fancied it up a little.

1. The moon. I know, I know. It's there every night. But my friends, the moon is particularly beautiful right now. Right this moment. In fact, just go outside.  Isn't it amazing?

 as forecasts go, this could not be more beautiful.

2. Loving the chill. I woke up this morning and my room felt the way it always does--like morning, which is too early, and full of sleep, which should last longer. You know, like a bedroom. But I had gone to bed in the belief that today would be a decidedly colder day, and I dressed accordingly, i.e., with a sweater.  And the people, I was not disappointed. When I went outside, the morning had a distinctly sweater-appropriate vibe, i.e., it was a little chilly. And even when the day warmed up a bit, that cardigan did not go amiss. And tonight, after dinner, I went out to take an early evening walk as if my life depended on it. And oh, the sky. The chill. The way the air felt on the verge of something colder. The moon on the rise. We have weeks and weeks of this kind of weather ahead, if we are lucky, and I intend to embrace it with my whole fall-loving, leaf-stomping, sleeping-with-more-covers, soup-eating heart.

this is a dramatic reenactment
of my television.

3. Television. Listen. If I were being honest, I would have put that another way: TELEVISION. Or even TELEVISION! Because television is the best. It's time for the new shows, you know. The very first new shows! Bonus: they're also showing the last episodes of last season, so you can revisit your old friends.

This summer we watched three seasons of Justified and we watched it so hard that at the moment, I find it hard not to wonder what Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder are up to these days. So yes, television, I am recommending it to you. So hard!

this cookie aspires to the
condition of my cookies. frls.

4. Sudden and spontaneous baking. Tonight, I was seized with the desire to eat cookies. Oatmeal cookies. So in the commercial breaks of the last episode of last season's Nashville, which I totally had not watched and thus watched with full attention and television tears, I beat sugar into butter and then an egg and vanilla into that, and then oats and flour and salt into that, and then chopped up dried strawberries and chopped up pecans into that. And thus it was that I found myself, tear-stained and emotional, pulling a pan of cookies out of the oven (375 degrees). Those cookies were so good. I kind of felt like a genius, which leads me to my point: eating cookies soothes the savage beast, y'all. Bonus: at the moment, it's not too hot to turn on the oven.

The wind in the trees.

I've been working at home today. When I woke and checked the weather, it said warm. And then: cold. A sudden cold snap, I thought to myself, hopefully. "We're going to have a cold snap tomorrow," I said to the historian.

This morning, I was Skyping with a student who lives in Minnesota, and who had not accounted for the time change when she made her appointment, but we caught up with each other nonetheless. Like the every oldening person I am becoming, I asked her about the weather:

Yes, I may also be using terms from olden days, like whippersnapper and skedaddle and lickety split and cold snap. But I am counting on it. I am counting on the cold to arrive and to--with a plus or minus of a few degrees fahrenheit--stay. To snap, and then linger. To be here now, for good.

At breakfast time, I stood in the doorway from my kitchen to the patio, toast and strawberries in hand. The wind sounded gusty. It wasn't cold, but it was noisy. Windy, in point of fact. Enough so that I stepped back inside, to read the paper while eating. The door stayed open. There was a discourse between the still kitchen and the blustery backyard, but I was in and the bluster was out, and that's the way it had to be.

Warm, but with a prophesying wind. Sunny, but with prognosticating clouds.

Autumnal-ish, in a word (plus suffix, which means imprecisely):

ALERT there are bees in my kitchen.

Or something like bees. Two of them, to be precise. Plural: bees.

Why? Because I am chopping mint and making tabbouleh? Or because there was sugar out for the pie?

Bees, like spiders and moths, do not belong in the house, in my opinion. And mice. Bees, spiders, moths, and mice all belong in the out of doors where there will actually be more opportunities for them. Or, fewer opportunities. I am, actually, stony and hard of heart on the subject of bees, spiders, moths, and mice. Circle of life, my friends, circle of life.

[note: I do want there to be bees in the world. I am not without mercy. I am not killing the bees. But I can't believe that the two bees in my kitchen are actually doing the bee-world any favors. The future of bees cannot lie in hanging around my kitchen while I chop mint. That just wouldn't be sustainable.]

All I'm saying is that I was making tabbouleh, but the bees have forced a retreat. As in, I cannot be in the kitchen, tabbouleh, mint, pie or no, if there are also bees, end of story.

America: keep your bees outside, with the flowers and trees and heat and dirt and wasps and, hopefully, spiders, moths, and mice. I need to add the mint, parsley, red onion, garlic, salt and pepper to the tabbouleh, stat! It's like a Mexican standoff up in here, with the two bees and their stingers and me with my scaredy-cat ways.

Bees! Get out!

That is all.

Notes for September.

On cleaning out my office, in preparation for the big move to the new building:

1. If you put stuff in a box, and then you don't look at the box for one year or more, throw away the contents of the box, preferably without looking at each individual paper.

2. Magazines and newspapers = stuff to recycles. Why did you stack this on your shelves in the first place?

3. No need for self-loathing, now. 

4. HOWEVER.

5. Just get rid of it in the first place, for heaven's sake.

On the weather:

It is hot. This cannot be denied. But the weather is changeable in September. Today's high of 93 will turn into Saturday's high of 88. And then, as a colleague just pointed out, soon it will be snowing. We live in hope.

On things to look forward to:

New The Mindy Project! New The New Girl! Two Scandinavian novels awaiting me. More and more tomatoes and basil and squash and peppers. Soon: sweaters. And tights! A whole slew of great movies now and to come. Going to visit my daughter. A trip with my son and another daughter. A trip north in October. A solid revision of my (second) manuscript. 

On renewable pleasures:

So many of them: Walking every night with the dog. Watching television with the dog. Taking a walk with my tiny little shuffle, music in my ears. Watching the sky. Autumn dreaming. Sleeping with the window open. Feeling, actually, optimism.

The flight path.

Recently, I realized that we live pretty much directly under a flight path for Salt Lake International Airport. I realized this, because I spent much more time outside, a lot of it looking up, evidently, especially in the mornings and the evenings.

This reminds me of the time a few years ago, when I made an unfortunate wrong-airport ticket purchase on my way back to American from Scotland. This error necessitated the hiring of a driver to take me from Gatwick to Heathrow, which, by the way, is not as simple as it sounds. Pro tip: don't do that. I did, however, get this benefit: the driver, who knew the back roads of that small city, Heathrow, like a native, showed me how the planes stacked up, waiting to land. Even in the sick winter haze, I could see more than ten planes in the air, lined up, waiting waiting waiting for the signal to land.

This evening on my walk, I saw as many as four planes in a holding pattern, right above me. If we lived a few miles further north, it would be awful--so much noise and so constant--but where we are, we can see the planes clearly without too much engine roar. Holding holding holding, then each in its turn, surging forward. Then the next one, and the next.

Holding, holding, holding. Then the next, and the next, and the next.

I won't spell it out for you--that would be gauche--but this is a metaphor.

Well, hello. For better or for worse, I'm back.

In which I am interpellated by a state apparatus.

I'm discussing the D.M.V., of course.

The people, in seven days it will be my birthday. I'm telling you know so you can start to compose your wittiest birthday wishes for Facebook. Or in person, whichever. Actually, I'm only mentioning my birthday (in seven days) because I'm hoping someone will bring me a cupcake.

NO. In point of fact, I am only mentioning my birthday, which is in one week, because I'm reminding you that I had to renew my driver's license.

Which can send a person into a tailspin, if you ask me, what with the whole memento mori aspect of it all. Yep, you're getting older, tempus fugit, too bad that your diem hath already been carpe'd and soon you're going to die. But not before you have to go to the D.M.V.

Luckily, I have a friend who is extremely in the know, who told me, when I was moaning in this fashion about this very topic last week (on Facebook), that you could make an appointment at the D.M.V.! And it would be super speedy, snappy, and relatively pain free.

Well! I got on the internet and found the fake Driver License website, and then discerned that it was fake when its information was patently archaic, whereupon I found the one true Driver License website. Whereupon I made an appointment and filled out my paperwork online. Whee! Then all that remained was to locate and assemble all the billion documents you need to demonstrate that you are a real person who really is a citizen (or not) and who lives here, in Utah, really, and also that you are not a fake person who just wants to while away her days in the D.M.V. in the hope that she will acquire a Driver License, I guess.

Luckily--and this is huge!--I only had to look five places for the folder that I labed "DOCUMENTS" many many years ago. A folder is one thing, but the real question--I hope you're feeling the suspense--is whether the DOCUMENTS folder had, in all actuality, any documents therein. But it did! I only looked five places--four of them file drawers--found the folder, looked in the folder, and therein I found, and to wit:

• a certified copy of my birth certificate, speaking of memento mori
• a copy of my Social Security card 

If I had needed to, I'm certain I could have rustled up my passport. But I didn't need to, according to the instructions on the website, which were clear-ish on this topic. Even so, I brought a recent bank statement, just in case.

So here's how it goes: you walk into the D.M.V. with your documents in your hand. (You will already have wrestled with yourself about whether you will wear and/or display your reading glasses, which you do not wear to drive--you will conclude that honesty is the best policy, you don't after all wear them to drive, but you do in fact need them to read.) You scan the room and find the sign that says:

If you have an appointment, 

check in here.

 So you'll walk over and check in. They will then send you to the woman who takes the pictures. She will persuse your documents and stamp them and instruct you to sit in the chair, then look at the camera. "You'll see a flash," she says, helpfully. Which you will. She'll give you a number and you'll go wait in a chair for about 90 seconds before they call your number.

You'll talk to the guy and he'll be extra friendly. "Delaware," he'll offer, as a conversation starter. "The only state we see less than Delaware is Rhode Island."You'll chat about this, and then about the reading glasses, and then you'll take the eye test, which you may actually have dreamed about the night before. You'll lean your head against the machine, which will light up the screen. Yeah, you'll think, those letters on the left side are kind of ... flickery? Then you'll realize that you can't fidget. Your head has to lean up against the machine with steady pressure. Once you realize this, the letters on the left will swim into place, and you'll read the letters on the top row like a boss. Or well enough, anyway, because you'll get the license.

The guy will print out your temporary license. He'll punch a hole in your old one. You'll look at your new picture and reflect that you look simultaneously exhausted, truculent, startled, and--inescapably--older.

And this will temper your sense of triumph that you're walking out of the D.M.V. precisely ten minutes after you walked in.

The Megastore Recommends: Back-to-School Edition.

Serious Professor. From A Serious Man.

 

1. Start slow. Let me ask you, Professor So Serious: why are you in such a hurry? Are you afraid the kids won't think you're serious if you don't scare the bejesus out of them the very first day by having a rigorous, killer discussion and also throwing your professorial weight around, already? Hey, Professor: leave them kids alone, and while you're at it, cut yourself a break too. Is it not August? Is it not, therefore, still summer, if only the last remainder? So go in there, meet the kids, point them in the direction of a syllabus, do a couple of magic tricks, crack a joke, and hightail it outta there. They'll be all, my professor is chill. And you are: you are chill. You're chillin' with a couple of minutes to spare, because you took my advice. You started slow.

[parenthetical note: does the above recommendation make my ass look lazy?]

The Answer.

2. Sandwich. Is the answer to pretty much all the questions on the first day of class. For instance:

On the first day of class, what should I have for lunch? Why, a sandwich.

When will class be over? Just in time to go grab a sandwich.

Where shall I eat my sandwich? On the patio. Near the cafeteria. Where they make the sandwiches.
Do I need to buy the textbook--are you really going to use it? or can I just scam off the class discussions? I don't like your attitude, but I'll feel better after I eat a sandwich.

3. Keep an outfit in reserve. "What shall I wear for the first day?" I asked the historian last night. "Comfortable shoes," he said, sensibly, although not entirely helpfully. (see #4 below for more on this point.) Shoes are important, but what about the clothes? Like every college professor in the land--okay, community college professor in the land--I have been stocking up on teaching outfits since before the weather got hot, so there is truly no shortage of possibilities. But it's August, am I

Or I could just wear this.

right? And thus it is still summer, if only the last remainder, so that means sweaters are for suckers. Ditto boots. Ditto anything that touches the body, basically. So the possibilities are not actually all that robust. As I considered the question, I recognized how I had been wearing, literally, the same four things all summer long, and my outfit assembling skills were thus a little rusty.

I'm sure you know what that means: black. Yes, I took the coward's way out and wore a black skirt, a black shirt, and black shoes. I tried to make up for it with badass accessories, but I'm not sure that the message came across--I might have been too busy contemplating the sandwich I was soon to eat when class was over to convey any simmering badassery.

Anyway, the point is this: even if my outfit today was a little predictable, I still have outfits in reserve. I have backup outfits. Today, I was perfectly presentable and pulled together, and I still have outfits yet untold. Outfits yet to be imagined! It's a good feeling, the people, a good feeling indeed.

The Lord help us if it comes to this.

4. Comfortable shoes, or shoes that live in the neighborhood of comfort. Recently, I have declared to many, many people that I will wear no more uncomfortable shoes forever. This is nonsense, of course, because I have so many, many shoes that are not comfortable. I am parting with them, one two three pairs at a time. (Pro tip: if you're in the "getting rid of uncomfortable shoes" game, I suggest wearing the shoes first, since the actual sense memory of how your feet feel just after you've worn them is a direct motivator.)

Anyway: on the first day of classes, you've got your walk in from the parking lot, schlepping your stuff. You've got your walk up the stairs. You've got your walk to class, you've got your walk back to your office, you've got your walk across the quad to get your sandwich. Your walk back, your walk to the car, etc. That's a lot of walking, Professor Fancy Shoes. So get real, and pack a pair of super comfortable shoes in your bag. You can put them on once you're done with the part of your day that calls for Fancy. That's what I did, and I call it genius.

The reminder.

Writing is hard. That's first.

The whole "everything you do is writing" notion notwithstanding, which I respect and honor, the actual sitting down to make a draft: hard.

Writing that draft can make you feel stupid. Stupid and stupider. Over and over again, for your whole life.

(Why do I do this, again?)

Yesterday, I finally plunged in, with all the brave bravery in my quiver of braveness, to wring a poem out of some notes that, truth be told, had been sitting around on their lazy, complacent asses all summer. "Notes," I said, "I will make a draft out of you or know the reason why!"

The notes did not even bestir themselves to look attentive. They were all, big talk for a person who hasn't written a poem in weeks. And they had a point, but I would not stand for that insolence. No! that insolence would not stand!

I disentangled a note, one with a small turn-of-phrase-of-possibility, from its slothful compatriots. I reorganized its syllables. I broke it in two, the better to form lines out of it. There, I said. A beginning.
Then did the same with another note. I discerned a form in the offing. Encouraged, I went with it: I constructed a whole draft out of two mangled notes and a nascent form.

Horrible.

I went to bed on the draft with this thought: I could reorganize the two settings and sort this from that, I could make it into longer stanzas instead of couplets. I thought, I'll work on it in the morning.

So I did. I checked out the entire internets and ate my breakfast (did I neglect to mention that I made a splendid dinner and cherry clafoutis last night? this is one of the side benefits of writing horrible drafts: inspiring dinners, with leftover cherry clafoutis for breakfast!). I re-investigated the entire internets to see if I might have missed something important. I forwarded a New York Times article to the historian and my oldest friend. Then I trailed, all summer and smoke--no, seriously, those fires to the east and the west are making my throat hurt and my eyes water--into my study, sat down in my big chair, and opened my draft.

I had to consider that my draft might, at this point, have the upper hand. What with its form and all. And its sheer presence.

But I opened another document, and started to sort this from that, to reorganize the two settings, to make longer stanzas.

And now I have a new draft.

So that's the second part: even a horrible first draft, wrested from indolent notes and bad formal experiments, can turn into a better second draft, as long as you're willing to let smoke, summer, weird dreams, roasted garlic and broccoli pasta with pecorino, cherry clafoutis, the entire internets, and your own sense of control (have you lost the header of this clause? Me too!)--as long as you're willing to let all of the above intervene.

Writing lesson out.

Oh, hello there.

Today I was at Whole Foods buying overpriced, well, everything. Happily, because there's nothing I like better, frankly. Not the overpriced-ness of it all, but the Whole Foods-ness of it all. What can I say? I just like the aroma of virtue all up in there. The eggs. The sugar. The super-expensive vanilla paste. Happy happy happy.

Not my point, however. My point is this: I got to the cashier, loaded my precious commodities onto the conveyer belt, got the total and wrote a check (hi! I'm old.), whipped out my driver's license before the cashier could even ask for it, and then I heard, faintly, as I was putting my pen back in my purse, a voice say, "This is about to expire."

I was all, now what's that? and thought maybe that was some other cashier speaking to some other patron, the way you think, are you talking to ME? when you hear honking nearby when you're driving. I looked up at him. He had my driver's license between his thumb and finger, ready for me to pluck and stow. And I was all, Right. Dammit.

Because he's right: my driver's license is about to expire. Like, at the end of the month. When it is my birthday.

This set in motion a series of mental events:

1. Where is that stuff the D.M.V. mailed me three months ago?
2. Probably in my study.
3. --but where in my study, exactly?
4. Wait: do I have to take a test? Because I don't want to be taking no test.
5. Eeek, what about an eye test!?
6. What should I wear? The last time I got my license renewed, I had new badass boots. What now? What outfit and/or accoutrements will protect me in my hour of need?

...and so forth. 


Like the rest of America, I dread the D.M.V., the people. I'm pretty sure you know the reasons why:

1. crowded.
2. stressful.
3. possible failure putting a critical American survival ability in doubt.
4. what if my eyes have crossed over from just needing reading glasses to needing actual glasses? and I didn't even realize it?

...and so forth.

Well, onward. At least I got some work done today before the bureaucratic state intervened to loom all over my happy bourgeois activities. Leave me alone, bureaucratic state, while I make a frittata and sulk!

Best ever hat trick.

Today started out kind of low-key. Because of a late-ish evening last night, wherein I lingered at my book group to chat with my friends, and then watched an episode of Justified, then chatted with the historian about our respective days, and took Bruiser for a walk, and look at that, it was 1 a.m.!, I did not quite finish a little chore for today's course redesign. So I got up and did it lickety split in the morning, then sauntered off to the redesign meeting.

Which was fine. Productive, as these things go.

Then I had a long overdue lunch with my friend, and after that, wandered around Target and was not overly impressed with anything. Sure, I could buy a mulberry lipstick. But I'm pretty sure I have, like, five of them already. Ditto everything else in Target. So I went home--

--and proceeded to conduct one of the very best naps of all time. I was reading some more of Beautiful Ruins, which I was supposed to have finished for my book group last night, but had not. It was good. It was great, and then I was sleepy. I took off my reading glasses and marked my place and fell asleep in an overcast afternoon that was so delicious that it, the nap, lasted for almost two hours.

Two hours is kind of a long nap, if you ask me. It's a possible sleeping-at-night disrupter. I woke up and thought two things:

a., Whoa. Long nap. How'd that happen?

and

2. I need to go to the store and get a watermelon, stat.

I hollered down the stairs to my youngest son to see if he wanted to come to the store with me, in case he had special food shopping needs, such as: buy tortilla chips, and while we're on that subject, buy tortillas, etc. Yes, he did want to come. So we moseyed on over to Macey's and grabbed a cart and discussed this and that while buying

a. a sugar doughnut
b. ciabatta rolls
c. fresh mozzarella (for caprese sandwiches)
d. tortilla chips
e. auxiliary chips of the potato variety
f. toilet paper
g. a bottle of Coke for the historian
h. Perrier for me, because I am fancy like that.
i. tortillas.
j. we almost forgot the ice! but didn't! and then
k., the best watermelon of the summer so far!

My personal superpower, if you want to know, is the ability to choose a watermelon that is not mushy but is sweet. So far this summer, my record is good but not perfect, because the watermelons, while not mushy, have not been quite as sweet as one might like, especially if one's superpower is watermelon selection. But this watermelon! I cut up half of it, ate some, and then scooped what was left in the rind, then scooped some more, and drank the juice. And so forth. And then had more for dinner. BAM the best watermelon ever! (this summer.)

And now, finally, I am duty bound to report that a couple of days ago, I bought a pair of jeans that should go into the jeans Hall of Fame. I am wearing them right now, while I write this blog post. I bought them at the Gap Factory store in Park City. They are a camo print, but dark navy and gray and black. You have to get up close to see their camo bona fides. They are skinny but not super skinny. They are fantastic. Seriously: you would not believe it. And comfortable, which only burnishes their Hall of Fame credentials.

Notes from underground.

It's August. Even though I think of August--always have--as still high summer, you can see the end in sight. I have made a note on my little calendar, counting down to school, that says, "*start preparing." That note is more than a week away. School starting is two weeks away. I am putting things off. I am trying to make these days last.

I have, without exactly saying so, made quiet the object of my seeking. Without exactly acknowledging it, I have been unfolding, letting my mind wander. I think that's what the morning out in the backyard is about. This morning I listened to the traffic beyond the field, and a rooster that was crowing rather late, and the breeze, and the wind chimes. That's noise, but it didn't feel noisy. It felt still. Whatever business it contained was far away from me.

My son, the youngest, is leaving for China in a few weeks. "Twenty days," he says, precisely. He'll be there a year, and maybe longer. Without making a big deal about it, I want to be around to help with whatever would be helpful, but also just to appreciate the house, our household, with him in it. The flux of his friends coming and going. The chance to go to a movie or eat something together. I felt the same way about my older son moving to Tempe for grad school. Not that I was crucial to any part of their plans, but I wanted to be there to help, and to have the occasions to be with them. I count it one of the best parts of this summer that I could go with them to Arizona, to help get them moved in and to see their new place, the start of their new life. How lucky that was, to be able to do that.

When I think of this summer, I will remember that we went to Scotland and spent two wonderful weeks there. This is the summer I listened to Daft Punk almost all summer, on and off, in Scotland and England, here and in Arizona. This is the summer I visited my oldest friend in Sonoma County. This is the summer I drove to Arizona with my son and his family and my youngest son as well. This is the summer I watched The Killing and Top of the Lake and Justified. This is the summer I read The Woman Upstairs and Ender's Game. This is the summer I spent time with most of my children and grandchildren. This summer, I spent time with my friends, did some writing, kept quiet time nearly every day.

Between now and when I go back to work, I hope to work on my second manuscript, write a poem or two, and make a couple of video projects. I want to buy and eat more watermelons. I have been eating the most wonderful strawberries from the farmer's market--I hope there are more of those. I want to make a pie, and preferably more than one pie. I hope to sit on my porch every morning and dream a little. I like spending time watching Justified with the historian, and I hope to do more of that. I don't see any reason not to think of these last summer days as infinitely elastic: I want them to extend and expand to contain all the beautiful morning and evening light, the little gray bird that landed on a branch of the cherry tree this morning, the wind sifting in the chimes, the drift of my thought, the culmination of my efforts, and the steady hand of quiet that has sustained and held me all these weeks.