The hot weather goes on and on. Already, at 6 a.m., the air is thick and steamy. My hair is a perpetual tangle of humidity curls; my face flushes at every exertion. I may never be dry again, though the soil certainly is. We did get a spatter of rain yesterday, but it left only a skim of moisture on the leaves; nothing reached the roots. The gardens are desperately in need of a three-day soaker.

Today's big event will be a visit to the vet. Ruckus hates to ride in the car, and yowls non-stop during every drive. He is not a pleasant traveling companion. Fortunately, even though he dislikes travel, he is easy to catch, as he cannot resist climbing into an open pet carrier. He's dumb that way.

So the cat circus will swallow up most of the morning. I'm getting close to finishing an editing project, and I'd like to get it off my desk and move on to the next stack. Today probably won't be the day. Maybe, instead, I'll just relax and let myself consider the poem draft I brought to my group last night. The poets seemed to like it quite a bit, but also had some suggestions about title changes that I'd like to experiment with.

I'm almost finished with Baron's novel, almost finished with my Blake self-assignment. I think those couple of home-alone days last week really helped me regain some sense of myself as a productive reader-thinker-writer. A small circle of space in the midst of no space at all. I figured out how to do it when the boys were young. It's got to be possible again.