I write to you from Route 95, snaking somewhere through York County, Maine, and heading south toward the New Hampshire line. I woke this morning filled with nervousness about yesterday's election, and the results are so much better than I feared. Maine reelected our poet-governor, Janet Mills, as well as our district 1 rep, Chellie Pingree, and right now the district 2 results are leaning toward Democrat Jared Golden. The results in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were excellent, and I am holding onto some hope for Georgia. Join me in heaving a huge sigh of relief as we witness the vexing of the Scoundrel Party.

My election anxiety has diminished, but I remain nervous about this leg of my travels. I am struggling with imposter syndrome around my Thursday-night reading. I mean, the next two readers in the series are Terrance Hayes and Robert Pinsky! However did I get into this lineup? Ugh. I'll stop palavering, as that's boring for all concerned, but still.

I'll switch to another subject. The wifi on this bus is egregious and I have no idea if you'll actually see this post, but I'll tell you about my class yesterday, which per usual was intense and charming. They lapped up the Margaret Atwood exemplars, they visited with a songwriter in residence at Monson Arts and asked beautiful and loving questions about her work, they giggled over off-color Doctor Seuss jokes, they wrote pieces about hunting and about hating hunting and they respected each other's opinions. I could go on and on but you get the idea.

Anyway: I think I'll end this post while the wifi is still sort of working. Talk to you soon.