Both sets of class prep are done--packets, syllabus, web pages, participant outreach. Today I will "relax," do housework, get my hair cut, go out to my evening writing salon, so that tomorrow I can get started on the giant new editing project that's scheduled to arrive. I feel as if I eked out those class plans just in time: next week I'll be on the road again, and this editing project is rumored to be massive and complicated.

It's supposed to rain and snow today--no accumulation to speak of but sloppy and raw, a good day to light the wood stove early, a good day to bake banana bread and dust the mantlepiece.

I'm still working my way through Watchmen, still reading the William Trevor short stories in After Rain, still copying out the Inferno. I've spent so much time with poems this week: my study is stacked high with the books I've been poring through. It was hard to choose, but I had to. The afternoon class will get Rainer Maria Rilke, Kim Addonizio, and Pablo Neruda. The weekend class will get Gray Jacobik, Geoffrey Chaucer, Patricia Smith, Jean Toomer, BJ Ward, Cheryl Savageau, Margaret Atwood, and Ilya Kaminsky. As you can see, I've covered a lot of poetic ground these past few days. No wonder my brain is tired.

Good tired, of course. I'm lucky to have a job in which I invent the duty.