A few months ago I submitted an essay manuscript to a contest. A few months later I received an email informing me that I had not won the contest. Then, a couple of days ago, I discovered that my name was listed on the contest website as a semifinalist. This was news to me, as the rejection email had been just a regular old rejection email. However, I guess I can now mention that my essay manuscript, The Language of Love, was a semifinalist in the Cleveland State University Poetry Center's 2015 essay-collection competition, judged by Wayne Koestenbaum, and we can all be surprised.

In other news, it is ridiculously hot in the northcountry. Usually, in mid-September, Mainers are worrying that scattered frost will kill their tomato plants before any of the fruit turns red and are also concerned about not rear-ending the oversized campers of out-of-state retirees who have inadequately pulled onto the nonexistent road shoulder so that they can photograph their husbands in front of colorful woodlots and scenic cedar swamps. But yesterday evening, I walked out of the freezing-cold Waterville Opera House into a Washington, D.C., night--warm, thick, humid; the harsh buzz and drip of air conditioning units; the brief whine of police cars running red lights. . . . It was a very odd sensation.

Still, my lawn mower is broken again, and I have become indifferent to weeds, and my garden plants are yellow and exhausted, and the forest is filled with mysterious and fascinating mushrooms, and I spend every weekday morning listening to my son intone the local high-school soccer results, so I know that autumn really is here, despite the silly temperature.