We've got a couple of days of heat ahead, and then rain will arrive and the daytime temperature will drop precipitously from the 80s to the 50s, and I'll be back to starting fires in the wood stove. And yet, apparently, it's June.

This morning I'll ship that novel I've been editing to the author, then turn my attention to housework, then work through an afternoon Frost Place meeting and an early evening meeting about a friend's poetry manuscript. And then salon writing tonight, and then my day will be done . . . though I'm hoping to slip out mid-afternoon and check out the new farmer's market that's opening around the corner.

How did I end up in the sort of neighborhood that attracts a farmer's market? Life is strange, and we accidentally bought the last affordable house, and it is the shabbiest one on the block. Still, there's no denying that this place has a teeny-tiny Park Slope vibe. Even a freak from the woods can see that.

And even in this cute enclave, the chores never cease. Now that my teaching jobs have ended, I have more time to do things like handwash all of the winter hats and scarves and make a blueberry pie. I also have more time to think about building a new poetry collection, and that is tomorrow's assignment: stop this emotive dilly-dallying and start laying out those poems on the dining-room table. I have a responsibility to myself. I have to figure it out.