Another chilly morning. Outside, a train rumbles past. In the distance, a truck hoists itself into gear. Everyone is going somewhere.

My mind is still vacation-confused: I keep forgetting the day of the week, keep sliding around on the slick edges of routine, but I did get the laundry done, I did turn in an editing project, I did manage to plan and execute a meal. Today will be easier. Part of the problem is that I caught yet another minor cold, my second one this month. It's no big deal, as colds go, but it's adding just enough brain fuzz to make everything seem a little bit difficult.

Anyway, today: exercise, editing, class planning, emailing, housework, groceries, an afternoon walk with my neighbor. I'm juggling two books: Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds and Scott Zesch's The Captured: A True Story of Abduction by Indians on the Texas Frontier. I learned about the latter book in the afterword to Paulette Jiles's News of the World, and so far it's extremely interesting. I've always been intrigued by captivity narratives and the way in which children, especially, were absorbed so completely into an entirely different family and culture. Intrigued and terrified, of course.

My work life is so busy right now--so much editing, and then I'll be zoom-teaching all weekend, then teaching up north next week. My visit to Brooklyn was a delight, but it was also entirely social. Writing a poem feels very far away.