It has already been a strange work week: hours of mulch hauling, followed by an afternoon in mall land hunting down party games. Today will also be odd: grass mowing and trimming in the morning, followed by playlist compilation. In between I'll be printing faculty paperwork, texting staff, and trying very hard not to forget anything, though of course I will forget many things. But I have been sleeping like a rock, thanks, no doubt, to all of that mulch hauling, and lots of sleep always makes my life better. So I'm pretty cheerful, despite the mental uproar.

The leaf-pile project is now finished. I did not have quite enough compost to cover every backyard bed, but I got all of them weeded and most of them mulched, and will eventually buy a few bags of compost to finish the job. I drove to the fish market after my mall odyssey and bought bluefish fillets ($9 a pound, an excellent deal for an unfairly maligned fish. Why don't people love bluefish and mackerel?), which I sautéed with baby red onions, garlic scapes, and fresh parsley. I read Anna K and fiddled with a poem draft and texted a kid and beat T at cribbage.

It will be another cool damp day here; maybe some sun by midmorning, but I'll believe it when I see it. We got more rain last night; it's been impossible to dry laundry, but the shrubs are in heaven, and my hair is a ball of frizz.

Tonight, for dinner: baked chicken and herb dumplings, lots of fresh lettuce, homemade vanilla ice cream with raspberry sauce. Cooking during garden season is so fun.

[Pardon the scatty focus of this letter, but such is the state of my brain. This does make me wonder if maybe teachers should assign essays to students that actually replicate how students think. That might be interesting for everyone.]