I have been holding on to today and tomorrow as a precious respite--the first and last weekend for many weeks when I won't be teaching or traveling. But the fates informed me, "Guess what? You must sit in the Tire Warehouse waiting room all Saturday morning, even though you tried to escape that doom by making an appointment for yesterday." So instead of puttering around my kitchen gathering together the ingredients for Emily Dickinson's black cake, I'll be ensconced in a plastic chair, attempting to read Alice Munro's short stories as ten torque wrenches whizz and shriek around me. I guess I'll be baking that cake tomorrow.

For the moment, thankfully, there are no torque wrenches in my life. Just the cat crunching chow in the dining room. Just Tom sleepily bonking a cup into a saucer. I suppose he'll be working on the shed today, but I wish he had the leisure to take the weekend off: he is very tired. I am drinking a second cup of coffee and thinking about the student manuscript I need to read; thinking about an essay I might undertake about writing into cadence instead of logic; thinking about watering houseplants and roasting Brussel sprouts and plucking a poem draft out of a notebook.

Did I tell you yesterday that my Monson kids are going to make found poems out of the 27 grievances in the Declaration of Independence? I am kind of pleased with myself for inventing this idea.