My brain feels all clogged up with academic editing. I am having a hard time paying attention to the real books I'm reading in between these nursemaid editing jobs, a situation that always scares me . . . like maybe it's an early symptom of pop-eyed CSI-watching dementia or a sign that I may soon be reduced to a diet of holiday needlepoint kits and Christian talk radio. I'm hoping that some combination of Bronte and Rilke will cure me, perhaps fed by the teaspoon at first. One hopeful indicator is that I've found myself craving The Autobiography of Malcolm X, but I can't seem to find it anywhere in the house. I'd like to think that the couch delivery man stole it, but I suspect what really happened is that all the pages fell out while I was reading it in the bathtub twenty years ago and I just forgot to replace it.

I'm thinking of writing an essay about what happens when a well-behaved twelve-year-old white girl first reads The Autobiography of Malcolm X while sitting in a tree in the backyard of a 1970s Providence suburb, but I'm not exactly sure what did happen. I do remember really wanting to take a good look at a conk and a zoot suit. I do remember thinking that being a well-behaved white girl wasn't a very interesting prospect for anyone who wanted to lead a brave life. I do remember thinking that "X" was an excellent choice for a last name and that Malcolm would have scared the shit out of my mother if he had shown up at the front door trying to sell her some Fuller Brushes. (I didn't actually think the words "scared the shit out of"; my thoughts were too well behaved.)

Dinner tonight: corn and bacon chowder, greenhouse salad, cheese biscuits.

Encouraging thought for the day, by Yves Bonnefoy (trans. Stanley Appelbaum):

from "Aube, fille des larmes, retablis"

Dawn, daughter of tears, reestablish

The room in its gray thing's peace

And the heart in its order.