Finally we got a frost last night, and now dogs are walking down the prom with their silly dog coats on, and women are wearing fuzzy hats, and the pompous gulls are nowhere to be seen, and the basil plant on my deck is shriveled and black.

Last night I cooked chicken soup, and Tom quit working at the house slightly early, and we just sat on the couch and did nothing. It was a tiny respite anyway. The exhaustion level is climbing, but he is soldiering on, and I am trying to follow. If nothing else, I have gotten a whole lot more competent with a hammer and a brush.

I did manage to send a couple of poems out to a venue that had requested a submission. I did manage to spend some time with another poet's work. I did manage to revise the description of my forthcoming essay class. But mostly "be a good friend to Tom" feels like the basic goal of my life these days.

Today: more editing, and then I have to go to South Portland to pick up a new lockset at the door-and-window store, and then I have to scrape paint and spackle holes in the Alcott House living room walls, and then I have to shuttle back to the apartment to make dinner and fold laundry.

I have to say that I am looking forward to painting that living room. Currently it has a cracked dirty white ceiling, pockmarked dirty mustardy walls, filthy chipped white trim, and a gruesome red-painted brick fireplace surround. The color combinations are painful: kind of a blood and pus look. But when I'm done with it, we'll have a clean matte white ceiling, medium-gray satin walls, pale-gray semi-gloss trim, and a white-painted fireplace surround. I can't wait to rest my eyes on that improvement.