Today, according to Wikipedia, is the day (in 355) that Roman emperor Constantius II promoted his cousin Julian to the rank of caesar and also made him governor of the Gauls. It is the day (in 1869) that Rutgers College defeated Princeton University (which was still known as the College of New Jersey) in America's first official intercollegiate football game as well as the day (in 1944) that scientists the Hanford Atomic Facility first produced the plutonium that they later used in the Fat Man atomic bomb that destroyed Nagasaki.

Moreover, today is my mother's birthday, and it is also the day on which a copper pipe from my well pump chose to spring the pinhole leak that is presently spraying water into my basement . . . which is to say, today is the day I wait around for the plumber to arrive, endure the sounds of his bad-news wrench clanking, and then write him a big check.

However, I will also keep writing. Yesterday was a banner day for production. I finished the Murdoch essay; began another on Marie de France, Jan Kochanowski, and Phillis Wheatley; wrote a teaching article; and drafted a poem I like. Then I made four loaves of Emily's black cake as well as some excellent soft-shell tacos.

It feels good to be writing new pieces, especially when they form themselves so quickly and coherently. I'm not sure if I'm exactly in the zone, but I'm dancing around the edges.