Yesterday I finished the last, tiny, touch-up revisions of Same Old Story. I even printed out a clean copy and wrote "Final" in the corner of the manuscript, which now dozes tidily on the shelf, handsome and unscrawled-upon . . . though I can't send it away to the publisher till I undergo the trial of posing for a new author photo. And why that should be such a trial I don't know. You'd think that after all these years of living with a photographer, I would have worked this problem out.


Today, after taking the dog to the vet, I get to crouch in the garden in 90-degree heat picking our first batch of beans. Deer flies will be dive-bombing my head, and bean rash will be spreading over my forearms, all for the sake of a colander of tiny, tiny slivers of new beans. Before enlightenment I hauled water and chopped wood. After enlightenment I hauled water and chopped wood. Did you notice that Thoreau and Woody Guthrie have birthdays in the same week? I think I will invite them both over for dinner tonight. I bet they like beans.


In the meantime I think I'll give you a random sample from the anthology. . and apparently what you're getting today is from Ornithology, poet Lynda Hull's tribute to Charlie Parker--a bracing cityscape break from my country-mouse chatter:


         . . .Women smoked the boulevards
   with gardenias afterhours, asphalt shower-

slick, ozone charging air with sixteenth

        notes, that endless convertible ride to find

the grave