This morning I'm sitting in my old familiar couch corner, with my old familiar coffee cup, listening to Chuckie crunch up his chow, listening to a loud cardinal whistling in the maples, listening to the subdued hum of city traffic. I'm home, I'm home, I'm home, and very, very glad to be here.

The conference is always one of my favorite weeks of the year, but it's exhausting . . . so much work, so much focused attention, so much social immersion. This year was even more intense than usual: by the time the sessions began, the faculty had already been engaged in a week of hard rehearsal. So it's no surprise we're sapped.

And of course home doesn't imply rest. My to-do list is long: piles of laundry, conference-related chores,  hauling a box to the UPS store, going to city hall to get permanent license plates, picking up my repaired wedding ring, catching up on housework, dealing with my dry and weedy garden, figuring out meals, et cetera, ad infinitum, blah blah blah.

The slide from conference busyness into home busyness is kind of disheartening, but so go the days. I'm tired. I'm lucky. I'm tired and lucky.