Two boys at home! And, tonight, an impromptu party with some favorite young people! Chili, ice cream, board games! I am all of a flutter.

Meanwhile, ten thousand pounds of laundry await.

The sky glimmers in pale pink over the bay.

I am drinking black coffee and looking at the spines of the books heaped on our coffee table: Christy Mathewson, Pitching in a Pinch. Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. John Guy, Queen of Scots. Sarah Ruhl, The Clean House and Other Plays. Morgan Parker, Magical Negro. The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. William Wegman, Funny/Strange. Upstairs, Tom is reading Peter Mathiessen's Cloud Forest, and James is reading Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Words float around this house like dust. They leak into the street every time I open a door.