Today is the first day of school. Tomorrow the Harmony Fair opens. In the meantime, I have a day to myself, the first in months--not that I will be writing poems or anything. But even though I will spend my hours editing and preparing for next week's workshop, I will be alone, and that fills its own craving.

When from our better selves we have too long
Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious, how benign, is Solitude.

Thank Wordsworth for that apropos description of my sensations. There's less ease in Emerson's remark: "Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend." Still, I'd rather risk mediocrity than have to spend my morning nagging a kid to do his math homework.

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In other news, here's today's uranium history update: "A guest editorial in the San Juan Record asserted that 'all that dust people complain about coming from the [uranium] mill' was being exaggerated and might actually be a positive outcome because 'dusting takes up our wives’ time . . . [and] keeps [them] in better physical condition.'"